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General  Editor 
LINDSAY  TODD  DAMON 

Professor  of  English,   Brown  University 


ADDISON    AND    STEELE — ^.S'tV    Roger    de    Coverly    Papers — 

Abbott 
ADDISON    AND    STEELE — Selections   from   The    Tatler    and 

The  Spectator — Abbott 
American  Short  Stories — Royster 
AUSTIN — Pride   and  Prejudice — Ward 
BROWNING — Selected  Poems — Reynolds 
Builders  of  Democracy — Greenlaw 
BUNYAN — The  Pilgrim's  Progress — Latham 
BURKEi — Speech    on    Conciliation    with    Collateral    Readings — ■ 

Ward 
BURNS — Selected  Poems  \  ^       ,       Mat?c:tt 

CARLYLE— JEJssai/  on  Burns  S  ^  voi.— marsh 
CHAUCER — Selections — Greenlaw 
COLERIDGE — The  Ancient  Mariner  \  ^    ^  ,       Tvyrnr^T^v 
LOWELL — Vision  of  Sir  Launfal        S  ^  vol.— moody 
COOPER — The  Last  of  the  Mohicans — Lewis 
COOPER — The  Spy — Damon 

DANA — Two  Years  Before  the  Mast — Westcott 
DEFOE — Robinson   Crusoe — Hastings 
Democracy  Today — Gauss 

DE  QUINCEY — The  Flight  of  a  Tartar  Tribe — French 
DE   QUINCEY — Joan  of  Arc  and  Selections — Moody 
DICKENS — A  Christmas  Carol,  etc. — Broadl'S 
DICKENS — A   Tale  of  Two  Cities — Baldwin 
DICKEN  S — David  Copper  field — Baldwin 
DRYDEN — Palamon  and  Arcite — CoOK 
ELIOT,    GEORGE — Silas   Marner — Hancock 
ELIOT,    GEORGE — The  Mill  on  the  Floss — Ward 
EMERSON — Essays  and  Addresses — Heydrick 
English    Poems — From    Pope,    Gray,    Goldsmith,    Coleridge, 

Byron,   Macaulay,   Arnold,   and  others — Scuddeb 
English  Popular  Ballads — Hart 
Essays — English  and  American — Alden 
Familiar  Letters,  English  and  American — Greenlaw 
FRANKLIN — Autobiography — Griffen 
French  Short  Stories — Schweikert 
GASKELL  (Mrs.) — Cranford — Hancocx 
GOLDSMITH — The  Vicar  of  Wakefield — Morton 
HAWTHORNE — The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables — ^Herrick 
HAWTHORNE — Twice-Told  Tales — Herrick   and    Bruere 
HUGHES — Tom  Brown's  School  Days — de  Millf 
IRVING — Life   of   Goldsmith — Krapp 
IRVING — The  Sketch  Book — Krapp 


IRVING — Tales  of  a  Traveller— and  parts  of  The  Sketch  Book— Kr\fp 
LAMB — Essays  of  Elia — Benedict 
LONGFELLOW— Ararra/iz;ePoew5— Powell 
LOWELL— F«*on  of  Sir  Launfal—See  Coleridge 
MACAULAY — Essays  on  Addison  and  Johnson — NEWCOMER 
MACAULAY — Essays  on  Clive  amd  Hastings — Newcomer 
MACAULAY — Goldsmith,  Frederic  the  Great,  Madame  D'Arblay — NEW- 
COMER 
MACAULAY — Essays  on  Milton  and  Addison — Newcomer 
MILTON — L' Allegro,  II  Penseroso,  Comus,  and  Lycidas — NeilsON 
MILTON — Paradise  Lost,  Books  I  and  II— FARLEY 
Modern  Plays,  A  Book  of — Coffman 
Old  Testament  Narratives — Rhodes 
One  Hundred  Narrative  Poems — Teter 
PALGRAVE — The  Golden  Treasury— NEWCOMER 
PAR  KM  AN — The  Oregon  TrafZ— Macdonald 
POE — Poems  and  Tales,  Selected — NEWCOMER 

POPE— Homer's  Iliad,  Books  I,  VJ,  XXII,  XXIV— Cressy  AND  MOODY 
READE — The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth— HE  MiLLE 
RUSKIN — Sesame  and  Lilies — LiNN 
Russian  Short  Stories — Schweikert 
SCOTT — Lady  of  the  Lake— MoODY 

SCOTT — Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel — MOODY  AND  WiLLARD 
SCOTT — Marmion— MOODY  and  Willard 
SCOTT— /wan/ioe-SlMONDS 
SCOTT — Qtcentin  Durward — SiMONDS 

Selections  from  the  Writings  of  Abraham  Lincoln — HAMILTON 
SHAKSPERE — The  Neilson  Edition— KaiteO.  by  W.  A.  NEILSON, 

/is  You  Like  It  Macbeth 

Hamlet  Midsummer-Night's  Dream 

Henry  V  Romeo  and  Juliet 

Julius  Caesar  The  Tempest 

Twelfth  Night 
SHAKSPERE — The  Merchant  of  Venice— 'LoyetT 
SOUTHEY — Life  of  Nelson— Westcott 

STEVENSON — Inland  Voyage  and  Travels  with  a  Donkey — LEONARD 
STEVENSON— iCiJna^i^ed— Leonard 
STEVENSON— rrea^wrg  Island— BUOADVS 
TENNYSON — Selected  Po^mj— Reynolds 
TENNYSON— r/je  Pr/nce^^— Copeland 
THACKERAY — English  Humorists— Cv^hlFFE  AND  WATT 
THACKERAY — Henry  Esmond— PHEhTS 
THOKEAV—Walden— Bowman 
Three  American  Poems — The     Raven,    Snow-Bound,     Miles    Standish — 

Greever 
Types  of  the  Short  Story — Heydrick 
VIRGIL — Aeneid — AllinsON  AND  ALLINSON 
Washington,  Webster,  Lincoln,  Selections  from  — Denney 

—  ■  ^ 

SCOTT,    FORESMAN    AND    COMPANY 
CHICAGO  ATLANTA  NEW  YORK 


trije  HafeE  €nglis!t)  Claggicfi 


REVISED  EDITION  WITH  HELPS  TO  STUDY 

SHAKSPERE'S 

A  MIDSUMMER  NIGHT'S  DREAM 


EDITED  FOR  SCHOOL  USE 
BY 

WILLIAM  ALLAN  NEILSON 

PRESIDENT  SMITH    COLLEGE 


SCOTT,  FORESMAN  AND  COMPANY 

CHICAGO  ATLANTA  NEW  YORK 


f5l 


REPLACING 

Copyright  1910,  1919 
By  Scott,  Foresman  and  Company 

302.20 


PREFACE 

The  aim  in  the  volumes  of  this  series  is  to  present 
a  satisfactory  text  of  each  play,  modernized  in  spell- 
ing and  punctuation,  with  as  full  an  equipment  of 
explanation  and  comment  as  is  necessary  for  thorough 
intelligibility.  The  first  section  of  the  introduction 
is  intended  to  give  the  student  an  idea  of  the  place 
of  the  play  In  the  history  of  the  English  drama  in 
general,  and  of  Shakspere's  development  In  particular. 

The  text  of  the  present  edition  has  been  based  on 
the  earlier  of  the  two  quartos  of  1600,  with  occasional 
readings  from  later  edjtlons.  Special  pains  have  been 
taken,  since  this  play  is  so  largely  spectacular,  to  make 
clear  which  of  the  stage-directions  are  taken  from 
contemporary  editions  and  which  are  the  conjectures 
of  modern  editors,  the  latter  being  throughout 
enclosed  In  square  brackets.  A  slight  change  from 
customary  usage  In  the  name  of  one  of  the  characters 
may  be  noted.  From  an  examination  of  the  original 
editions  it  seems  clear  that  Puck  is  not  intended  by 
the  author  to  be  the  proper  name  of  Robin  Good- 
fellow,  but  a  descriptive  appellation,  like  Clown  or 
Constable,  though,  as  in  these  instances,  it  occurs  at 
times  in  stage-directions  and  speech-tags  instead  of 
the  proper  name.  ''Robin  Goodfellow"  has  accord- 
ingly been  uniformly  used  in  the  directions,  bracketed 


ivil63^8 


10  PREFACE 

when  this  Involved  a  departure  from  the  quarto 
reading. 

Some  plays,  as  has  been  pointed  out  in  previous 
volumes,  afford  a  special  opportunity  for  the  discus- 
sion of  plot  and  others  of  character.  The  present 
comedy  affords  the  teacher  an  uncommon  opening  to 
exhibit  Shakspere's  power  of  creating  a  distinctive 
atmosphere,  and  the  exuberance  of  his  poetic  imagi- 
nation. The  attention  of  the  student  may  well  be 
drawn  to  the  apparent  incongruity  of  the  different 
groups  constituting  the  <^r^;7z<^/i^  persona:  the  courtly 
dignity  of  Theseus  and  his  circle,  the  romantic  abandon 
of  the  lovers,  the  homeliness  of  speech  and  manner  of 
Bottom  and  his  mates,  the  immaterial  grace  of  the 
fairies.  Thinking  of  these  groups  separately,  we 
seem  to  see  the  drama  moving  on  a  series  of  distinct 
planes.  Yet  the  action  of  each  is  brought  into  suffi- 
cient relation  with  all  the  others ;  the  incongruity,  so 
far  as  it  survives,  only  increases  the  delightful  humor ; 
and  the  whole  is  so  skilfully  removed  from  the  tests 
of  common  sense  and  reason,  and  clothed  in  such  an 
iridescent  veil  of  poetry,  that  the  play  remains  a 
unique  triumph  in  its  kind. 

For  further  details  on  the  life  and  work  of  Shak- 
spere,  the  following  may  be  referred  to:  Dowden's 
Shakspere  Primer,  and  Shakspere,  His  Mind  and 
Art;  Sidney  Lee's  Life  of  William  Shakespeare 
(revised  edition,  1909)  ;  and  Shakspere  and  His 
Predecessors,  by  F,  S.  Boas.  For  a  general  account 
of   the   English   drama   of   the   period   see   A.   W. 


PREFACE  11 

Ward's  History  of  English  Dra?Jiatic  Literature 
(revised  edition,  1899)  and  F.  E.  Schelllng's  Eliza- 
bethan Drama,  both  of  which  are  rich  in  bibliography. 
For  questions  of  language  and  grammar,  see  A. 
Schmidt's  Shakespeare  Lexicon;  J.  Bartlett's  Con- 
cordance to  Shakespeare,  and  E.  A.  Abbott's  Shakes- 
pearian Grammar.  As  usual,  Dr.  H.  H.  Furness's 
Variorum  edition  of  the  present  play  is  a  compendium 
of  the  results  of  scholarship  on  the  subject. 

I  again  wish  to  thank  Mr.  R.  G.  Martin  for  sub- 
stantial assistance. 

W.  A.  N. 
Harvard  University,  August,  1909. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 9 

Introduction 

I.  Shakspere  and  the  English  Drama «,....  o » ... .  15 

II.  A   Midsummer-Night '5   Dream. .  ..o ........ .  32 

Text 45 

Notes  133 

Word  Index , .  155 

a.ppendix 

Helps  to  Study 159 

Theme  Subjects 164 


INTRODUCTION 

1.       SHAKSPERE  AND  THE   ENGLISH   DRAMA 

The  wonderful  rapidity  of  the  development  of  the 
English  drama  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  . 
century  stands  in  striking  contrast  to  the  slowness  of 
Its  growth  before  that  period.  The  religious  drama, 
out  of  which  the  modern  dramatic  forms  were  to 
spring,  had  dragged  through  centuries  with  compara- 
tively little  change,  and  was  still  alive  w^hen,  in  1576, 
the  first  theatre  was  built  in  London.  By  1600 
Shakspere  had  written  more  than  half  his  plays  and 
stood  completely  master  of  the  art  which  he  brought 
to  a  pitch  unsurpassed  in  any  age.  Much  of  this 
extraordinary  later  progress  was  due  to  contemporary 
causes;  but  there  entered  into  it  also  certain  other 
elements  which  can  be  understood  only  in  the  light 
of  the  attempts  that  had  been  made  in  the  three  or 
four  preceding  centuries. 

In  England,  as  in  Greece,  the  drama  sprang  from 

religious  ceremonial.     The  Mass,  the  centre  of  the 

public  worship  of  the  Roman  church, 

The  Drama  .        i       i  •  •   i      • 

before  contamed    dramatic    material    in    the 

Shakspere.  gestures   of   the  officiating  priests.   In 

the  narratives  contained  in  the  Lessons,  and  in  the 
responsive  singing  and  chanting.  Latin,  the  language 

15 


10  INTRODUCTION 

In  which  the  services  were  conducted,,  was  unintel- 
ligible to  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  as  early  as  the 
fifth  century  the  clergy  had  begun  to  use  such  devices 
as.  tableaux  vivants  of  scenes  like  the  marriage  In 
Cana  and  the  Adoration  of  the  Magi  to  make  com- 
prehensible Important  events  in  Bible  history.  Later, 
the  Easter  services  were  illuminated  by  representa- 
tions of  the  scene  at  the  sepulchre  on  the  morning  of 
the  Resurrection,  in  which  a  wooden,  and  afterwards 
a  stone,  structure  was  used  for  the  tomb  itself,  and 
the  dialogue  was  chanted  by  different  speakers  repre- 
senting respectively  the  angel,  the  disciples,  and  the 
women.  From  such  beginnings  as  this  there  gradu- 
ally evolved  the  earliest  form  of  the  Miracle  Play. 

As  the  presentations  became  more  elaborate,  the 
place  of  performance  was  moved  first  to  the  church- 
yard, then  to  the  fields,  and  finally  to  the  streets  and 
open  spaces  of  the  towns.  With  uhis  change  of 
locality  went  a  change  in  the  language  and  In  the 
actors  and  an  extension  of  the  field  from  which  the 
subjects  were  chosen.  Latin  gave  way  to  the  ver- 
nacular, and  the  priests  to  laymen;  and  miracle  plays 
representing  the  lives  of  patron  saints  were  given  by 
schools,  trade  gilds,  and  other  lay  Institutions.  A 
further  development  appeared  when.  Instead  of  single 
plays,  whole  series  such  as  the  extant  York,  Chester, 
and  Coventry  cycles  were  given,  dealing  In  chrono- 
logical order  with  the  most  important  events  In  Bible 
history  from  the  Creation  to  the  Day  of  Judgment. 

The  stage  used  for  the  miracle  play  as  thus  devel- 


SHAKSPERE  AND  ENGLISH   DRAMA         17 

oped  was  a  platform  mounted  on  wheels,  which  was 
moved  from  space  to  space  through  the  streets.  Each 
trade  undertook  one  or  more  plays.,  and,  when  pos- 
sible, these  were  allotted  with  reference  to  the  nature 
of  the  particular  trade.  Thus  the  play  representing 
the  visit  of  the  Magi  bearing  gifts  to  the  infant 
Christ  was  given  to  the  goldsmiths,  and  the  Building 
of  the  Ark  to  the  carpenters.  The  costumes  were 
conventional  and  frequently  grotesque.  Judas  always 
wore  red  hair  and  a  red  beard ;  Herod  appeared  as  a 
fierce  Saracen ;  the  devil  had  a  terrifying  mask  and  a 
tail ;  and  divine  personages  wore  gilt  hair. 

Meanwhile  the  attitude  of  the  church  towards 
these  performances  had  changed.  Priests  w^ere  for- 
bidden to  take  part  in  them,  and  as  early  as  the  four- 
teenth century  we  find  sermons  directed  against  them. 
The  secular  management  had  a  more  important 
result  in  the  introduction  of  comic  elements.  Figures 
such  as  Noah's  wife  and  Herod  became  frankly 
farcical,  and  whole  episodes  drawn  from  contem- 
porary life  and  full  of  local  color  w^ere  invented,  in 
which  the  original  aim  of  edification  was  displaced 
by  an  explicit  attempt  at  pure  entertainment.  Most 
of  these  features  w^ere  characteristic  of  the  religious 
drama  in  general  throughout  Western  Europe.  But 
the  local  and  contemporary  elements  naturally  tended 
to  become  national ;  and  in  England  we  find  in  these 
humorous  episodes  the  be2:innings  of  native  com.edy. 

Long  before  the  miracle  plays  had  reached  their 
height,    the   next   stage   in    the   development   of   the 


18  INTRODUCTION 

drama  had  begun.  Even  in  very  early  performances 
there  had  appeared,  among  the  dramatis  persona 
drawn  from  the  Scriptures,  personifications  of 
abstract  qualities  such  as  Righteousness,  Peace, 
Mercy,  and  Truth.  In  the  fifteenth  century  this 
allegorical  tendency,  which  was  prevalent  also  in  the 
non-dramatic  literature  of  the  age,  resulted  in  the 
rise  of  another  kind  of  play,  the  Morality,  in  which 
all  the  characters  were,  personifications,  and  in  which 
the  aim,  at  first  the  teaching  of  moral  lessons,  later 
became  frequently  satirical.  Thus  the  most  powerful 
of  all  the  Moralities,  Sir  David  Lindesay's  Satire  of 
the  Three  Estates^  is  a  direct  attack  upon  the  corrup- 
tion in  the  church  just  before  the  Reformation. 

The  advance  implied  in  the  Morality  consisted  not 
so  much  in  any  increase  in  the  vitality  of  the  char- 
acters or  in  the  interest  of  the  plot  (in  both  of  which, 
indeed,  there  was  usually  a  falling  off),  as  in  the  fact 
that  in  it  the  drama  had  freed  itself  from  the  bondage 
of  having  to  choose  its  subject  matter  from  one  set  of 
sources — the  Bible,  the  Apocrypha,  and  the  Lives  of 
the  Saints.  This  freedom  was  shared  by  the  Inter- 
lude, a  form  not  always  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
Morality,  but  one  in  which  the  tendency  was  to  sub- 
stitute for  personified  abstractions  actual  sociaL  types 
such  as  the  Priest,  the  Pardoner,  or  the  Palmer.  A 
feature  of  both  forpis  was  the  Vice,  a  humorous 
character  who  appeared  under  the  various  disguises  of 
Hypocrisy,  Fraud,  and  the  like,  and  whose  function 
it  was  to  make  fun,  chiefly  at  the  expense  of  the  Devil. 


SHAKSPERE  AND  ENGLISH  DRAMA         19 

The  Vice  Is  historically  important  as  having  be- 
queathed some  of  his  characteristics  to  the  Fool  of  the 
later  drama. 

John  Heywood,  the  most  important  writer  of  Inter- 
ludes, lived  vv^ell  into  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  even 
the  miracle  play  persisted  into  the  reign  of  her  suc- 
cessor in  the  seventeenth  century.  But  long  before  it 
finally  disappeared  it  had  become  a  mere  medieval 
survival.  A  new  England  had  meantime  come  into 
being  and  new  forces  w^ere  at  work,  manifesting 
themselves  in  a  dramatic  literature  infinitely  beyond 
anything  even  suggested  by  the  crude  forms  which 
have  been  described. 

The  great  European  intellectual  movement  known 
as  the  Renaissance  had  at  last  reached  England,  and 
It  brought  with  it  materials  for  an  unparalleled 
advance  in  all  the  living  forms  of  literature.  Italy 
and  the  classics,,  especially,  supplied  literary  models 
and  material.  Not  only  were  translations  from  these 
sources  abundant,  but  Italian  players  visited  England, 
and  performed  before  Queen  Elizabeth.  France  and 
Spain,  as  well  as  Italy,  flooded  the  literary  market 
with  collections  of  tales,  from  which,  both  in  the 
original  languages  and  in  such  translations  as  are 
found  in  Paynter's  Palace  of  Pleasure  (published 
1566-67),  the  dramatists  drew  materials  for  their 
plots.  4 

These  literary  conditions,  however,  did  not  do 
much  beyond  offering  a  means  of  expression.  For  a 


20  INTRODUCTION 

movement  so  magnificent  in  scale  as  that  which  pro- 
duced the  Elizabethan  Drama,  something  is  needed 
besides  models  and  material.  In  the  present  instance 
this  something  is  to  be  found  in  the  state  of  exaltation 
which  characterized  the  spirit  of  the  English  people 
in  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  Politically,  the 
nation  was  at  last  one  after  the  protracted  divisions 
of  the  Reformation,  and  its  pride  was  stimulated  by 
its  success  in  the  fight  with  Spain.  Intellectually,  it 
was  sharing  with  the  rest  of  Europe  the  exhilaration 
of  the  Renaissance.  New  lines  of  action  in  all  parts 
of  the  world,  new  lines  of  thought  in  all  departments 
of  scholarship  and  speculation,  were  opening  up ;  and 
the  whole  land  was  throbbing  with  life. 

In  its  very  beginnings  the  new  movement  in  Eng- 
land showed  signs  of  that  combination  of  native 
tradition  and  foreign  influence  which  was  to  char- 
acterize it  throughout.  The  first  regular  English 
comedy,  Udall's  Ralph  Roister  Doister  was  an  adapta- 
tion of  the  plot  of  the  Miles  Gloriosus  of  Plautus  to 
contemporary  English  life.  After  a  short  period  of 
experiment  by  amateurs  working  chiefly  under  the 
influence  of  Seneca,  we  come  on  a  band  of  professional 
playwrights  who  not  only  prepared  the  way  for 
Shakspere,  but  in  some  instances  produced  works  of 
great  intrinsic  worth.  The  mythological  dramas  of 
Lyly  with  the  bright  repartee  of  their  prose  dialogue 
and  the  music  of  their  occasional  lyrics,  the  interest- 
ing experiments  of  Greene  and  Peele,  and  the  horrors 
of  the  tragedy  of  Kyd,  are  all  full  ^f  suggestions  of 


SHAKSPERE  AND  ENGLISH   DRAMA        21 

what  was  to  come.  But  by  far  the  greatest  of  Shaks- 
pere's  forerunners  was  Christopher  Marlowe,  who 
not  only  has  the  credit  of  fixing  blank  verse  as  the 
future  poetic  medium  for  English  tragedy,  but  who  in 
his  plays  from  T amhurlaine  to  Edward  II.  con- 
tributed to  the  list  of  the  great  permanent  master- 
pieces of  the  English  drama. 

It  was  in  the  professional  society  of  these  men  that 

Shakspere  found  himself  when  he  came  to  London. 

Born  in  the  provincial  town  of  Strat- 

Shakspere's         ford-on-Avon  in  the  heart  of  England, 

Early  Life.  .  . 

he  was  baptized  on  April  26,  1564 
(May  6th,  according  to  our  reckoning).  The  exact 
day  of  his  birth  is  unknown.  His  father  was  John 
Shakspere,  a  fairly  prosperous  tradesman,  who  may 
be  supposed  to  have  followed  the  custom  of  his  class 
in  educating  his  son.  If  this  were  so,  William  would 
be  sent  to  the  Grammar  School,  already  able  to  read, 
when  he  w^as  seven,  and  there  he  would  be  set  to 
work  on  Latin  Grammar,  followed  by  reading,  up  to 
the  fourth  year,  in  Cato's  Maxi??iSj  i^sop's  Fables, 
and  parts  of  Ovid,  Cicero,  and  the  medieval  poet 
Mantuanus.  If  he  continued  through  the  fifth  and 
sixth  years.,  he  would  read  parts  of  Vergil,  Horace, 
Terence,  Plautus,  and  the  Satirists.  Greek  was  not 
usually  taught  in  the  Grammar  Schools.  Whether 
he  went  through  this  course  or  not  we  have  no  means 
of  knowing,  except  the  evidence  afforded  by  the  use 
of  the  classics  in  his  works,  and  the  famous  dictum  of 
his  friend,  Ben  Jonson,  that  he  had  ''small  Latin  and 


22  INTRODUCTION 

less  Greek."  What  we  are  sure  of  Is  that  he  was  a 
boy  of  remarkable  acuteness  of  observation,  who  used 
his  chances  for  picking  up  facts  of  all  kinds ;  for  only 
thus  could  he  have  accumulated  the  fund  of  informa- 
tion w^hich  he  put  to  such  a  variety  of  uses  in  his 
writings. 

Throughout  the  poet's  boyhood  the  fortunes  of 
John  Shakspere  kept  Improving  until  he  reached  the 
position  of  High  Balllfi  or  Mayor  of  Stratford. 
When  William  was  about  thirteen,  however,  his 
father  began  to  meet  with  reverses,  and  these  are 
conjectured  to  have  led  to  the  boy's  being  taken  from 
school  early  and  set  to  work.  What  business  he  was 
taught  we  do  not  know,  and  indeed  we  have  little 
more  information  about  him  till  the  date  of  his  mar- 
riage in  November,  1582,  to  Anne  Hathaway,  a 
woman  from  a  neighboring  village,  who  was  seven 
years  his  senior.  Concerning  his  occupations  in  the 
years  immediately  preceding  and  succeeding  his  mar- 
riage several  traditions  have  come  down, — of  his 
having  been  apprenticed  as  a  butcher,  of  his  having 
taken  part  in  poaching  expeditions,  and  the  like — but 
none  of  these  is  based  upon  sufficient  evidence.  Abouf 
1585  he  left  Stratford,  and  probably  by  the  next  year 
he  had  found  his  way  to  London.  .   . 

How  soon  and  in  what  capacity  he  first  became 
attached  to  the  theatres  we  are  again  unable  to  say, 
but  by  1592  he  had  certainly  been  engaged  in 
theatrical  affairs  long  enough  to  give  some  occasion 
for  the  jealous  outburst  of  a  rival  playwright,  Robert 


SHAKSPERE  AND  ENGLISH   DRAMA        23 

Greene,  who  in  a  pamphlet  posthumously  published 
in  that  year,  accused  him  of  plagiarism.  Henry 
Chettle,  the  editor  of  Greene's  pam.phlet,  shortly 
after  apologized  for  his  connection  with  the  charge, 
and  bore  witness  to  Shakspere's  honorable  reputation 
as  a  man  and  to  his  skill  both  as  an  actor  and  a 
dramatist. 

Robert  Greene,  who  thus  supplies  us  w^ith  the 
earliest  extant  Indications  of  his  rival's  presence  In 
London,  was  In  many  waj^s  a  typical  figure  among 
the  playwrights  with  whom  Shakspere  w^orked  during 
this  early  period.  A  member  of  both  universities, 
Greene  came  to  the  metropolis  w^hlle  yet  a  young 
man,  and  there  led  a  life  of  the  most  diversified 
literary  activity,  varied  with  bouts  of  the  wildest 
debauchery.  He  was  a  writer  of  satirical  and  contro- 
versial pamphlets,  of  romantic  tales,  of  elegiac, 
pastoral,  and  lyric  poetry,  a  translator,  a  dramatist, — 
in  fact,  a  literary  jack-of-all-trades.  The  society  In 
which  he  lived  consisted  in  part  of  "University  Wits" 
like  himself.  In  part  of  the  low  men  and  women  who 
haunted  the  vile  taverns  of  the  slums  to  prey  upon 
such  as  he.  ''A  world  of  blackguardism  dashed  with 
genius,"  It  has  been  called  .  and  the  phrase  Is  fit 
enough.  Among  such  surroundings  Greene  lived, 
and  among  them  he  died,  bankrupt  In  body  and 
estate,  the  victim  of  his  own  ill-governed  passions. 

In  conjunction  with  such  men  as  this  Shakspere 
began  his  life-work.  His  first  dramatic  efforts  were 
made  in  revising  the  plays  of  his  predecessors  with  a 


24  INTRODUCTION 

view  to  their  revival  on  the  stage;  and  In  Titus 
Andronicus  and  the  first  part  of  Henry  VI.  we  have 
examples  of  this  kind  of  work.  The  next  step  was 
probably  the  production  of  plays  in  collaboration 
with  other  writers,  and  to  this  practice,  which  he 
almost  abandoned  in  the  middle  of  his  career,  he 
seems  to  have  returned  In  his  later  years  In  such  plays 
as  Pericles  J  Henry  VHL,  and  The  Two  Noble  Kins- 
men.  How  far  Shakspere  was  of  this  dissolute  set  to 
which  his  fellow-workers  belonged  it  Is  impossible  to 
tell;  but  we  know  that  by  and  by,  as  he  gained 
mastery  over  his  art  and  became  more  and  more 
independent  In  work  and  In  fortune,  he  left  this 
sordid  life  behind  him,  and  aimed  at  the  establish- 
ment of  a  family.  In  half  a  dozen  years  from  the 
time  of  Greene's  attack,  he  had  reached  the  top  of 
his  profession,  was  a  sharer  In  the  profits  of  his 
theatre,  and  had  invested  his  savings  in  land  and 
houses  in  his  native  town.  The  youth  who  ten 
years  before  had  left  Stratford  poor  and  burdened 
with  a  wife  and  three  children,  had  now  become 
''William  Shakspere,  Gentleman." 

During  these  years  Shakspere's  literary  work  was 
not  confined  to  the  drama,  which.  Indeed,  was  then 
hardly  regarded  as  a  form  of  literature.  In  1593  he 
published  Venus  and  Adonis,  and  in  1594,  Lucrece, 
two  poems  belonging  to  a  class  of  highly  wrought 
versions  of  classical  legends  which  was  then  fashion- 
able, and  of  which  Marlowe's  Hero  and  Leander  is 
the  other  most  famous  example.     For  several  years, 


SHAKSPERE  AND  ENGLISH   DRAMA        25 

too,  in  the  last  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century  and 
the  first  few  years  of  the  seventeenth,  he  was  com- 
posing a  series  of  sonnets  on  love  and  friendship,  in 
this,  too,  following  a  literary  fashion  of  the  time. 
Yet  these  give  us  more  in  the  way  of  self-revelation 
than  anything  else  he  has  left.  From  them  we  seem 
to  be  able  to  catch  glimpses  of  his  attitude  towards 
his  profession,,  and  one  of  them  makes  us  realize  so 
vividly  his  perception  of  the  tragic  risks  of  his  sur- 
roundings that  it  is  set  down  here: 

O,  for  my  sake  do  you  with  Fortune  chide, 

The  guiky  goddess  of  my  harmful  deeds, 
That  did  not  better  for  my  life  provide 

Than  public  means  which  public  manners  breeds. 
Thence  comes  it  that  my  name  receives  a  brand, 

And  almost  thence  my  nature  is  subdued 
To  what  it  works  in,  like  the  dyer's  hand: 

Pity  me  then  and  wish  I  were  renewed; 
Whilst,  like  a  willing  patient,  I  will  drink 

Potions  of  eisel  'gainst  my  strong  infection; 
No  bitterness  that  I  will  bitter  think. 

Nor  double  penance  to  correct  correction. 
Pity  me,  then  dear  friend,  and  I  assure  ye 

Even  that  your  pity  is  enough  to  cure  me. 

It  does  not  seem  possible  to  avoid  the  inference! 
lying  on  the  surface  of  this  poem ;  but  whatever  con- 
fessions it  may  imply,  it  serves,  too,  to  give  us  the 
assurance  that  Shakspere  did  not  easily  and  blindly 
yield  to  the  temptations  that  surrounded  the  life  of 
the  theatre  of  his  time. 


26  INTRODUCTION 

For  the  theatre  of  Shakspere's  day  was  no  very 
reputable  afFair.     Externally  it  appears  to  us  now 
a    very    meagre    apparatus  —  almost 
Elizabethan  absurdly  SO,  when  we  reflect  on  the 

Theatre.  grandeur    of    the    compositions    for 

which  it  gave  occasion.  A  roughly  circular  wooden 
building,  with  a  roof  over  the  stage  and  over  the 
galleries,  but  with  the  pit  often  open  to  the  wind  and 
weather,  having  very  little  scenery  and  practically  no 
attempt  at  the  achievement  of  stage-illusion,  such 
was  the  scene  of  the  production  of  some  of  the  greatest 
imaginative  works  the  world  has  seen.  Nor  was  the 
audience  very  choice.  The  more  respectable  citizens 
of  Puritan  tendencies  frowned  on  the  theatre  to  such 
an  extent  that  it  was  found  advisable  to  place  the 
buildings  outside  the  city  limits,  and  bej  ond  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  city  fathers.  The  pit  was  thronged 
with  a  motley  crowd  of  petty  tradesfolk  and  the  dregs 
of  the  town ;  the  gallants  of  the  time  sat  on  stools  on 
the  stage,  ^'drinking"  tobacco  and  chaffing  the  actors, 
their  efforts  divided  between  displaying  their  wit  and 
their  clothes.  The  actors  were  all  male,  the  women's 
parts  being  .taken  by  boys  whose  voices  were  not  yet 
broken.  The  costumes,  frequently  the  cast-off  cloth- 
ing of  the  gallants,  were  often  gorgeous.,  but  seldom 
appropriate.  Thus  the  success  of  the  performance 
had  to  depend  upon  the  excellence  of  the  piece,  the 
merit  of  the  acting,  and  the  readiness  of  appreciation 
of  the  audience. 

This  last  point,  however,  was  more  to  be  relied 


SHAKSPERE  AND  ENGLISH   DRAMA        27 

upon  than  a  modern  student  might  imagine.  Despite 
their  dubious  respectability,  the  Elizabethan  play- 
goers must  have  been  of  wonderfully  keen  intellectual 
susceptibilities.  For  clever  feats  in  the  manipulation 
of  language,  for  puns,  happy  alliterations,  delicate 
melody  such  as  w^e  find  in  the  lyrics  of  the  times,  for 
the  thunder  of  the  pentameter  as  it  rolls  through  the 
tragedies  of  Marlowe,  they  had  a  practiced  taste. 
Qualities  which  we  now  expect  to  appeal  chiefly  to 
the  literary  student  were  keenly  relished  by  men  who 
could  neither  read  nor  write,  and  who  at  the  same 
time  enjoyed  jokes  which  would  be  too  broad,  and 
stage  massacres  which  would  be  too  bloody,  for  a 
modern  audience  of  sensibilities  much  less  acute  in 
these  other  directions.  In  it  all  we  see  how  far- 
reaching  was  the  wonderful  vitality  of  the  time. 

This   audience   Shakspere   knew   thoroughly,   and 
in  his  writing  he  showed  himself  always,  with  what- 
ever   growth    in    permanent    artistic 

Shakspere's  ,.   .  ,  r    ^        • 

Dramatic  qualities,   the  clever  man  of  business 

Development.  with  his  eye  on  the  market.  Thus  we 
can  trace  throughout  the  course  of  his  production  two 
main  lines :  one  indicative  of  the  changes  of  theatrical 
fashions;  one,  more  subtle  and  more  liable  to  mis- 
Interpretation,  showing  the  progress  of  his  own 
spiritual  growth. 

The  chronology  of  Shakspere's  plays  will  probably 
never  be  made  out  with  complete  assurance,  but 
already  much  has  been  ascertained  ( 1 )  from  external 
evidence  such  as  dates  of  acting  or  publication,  and 


28 


INTRODUCTION 


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SHAKSPERE  AND  ENGLISH   DRAMA        29 

allusions  In  other  works,  and  (2)  from  internal 
evidence  such  as  references  to  books  or  events  of 
know^n  date,  and  considerations  of  meter  and  lan- 
guage. The  arrangement  on  page  28  represents  what 
is  probably  an  approximately  correct  view  of  the 
chronological  sequence  of  his  works,  though  scholars 
are  far  from  being  agreed  upon  many  of  the  details. 

The  first  of  these  groups  contains  three  comedies 
of  a  distinctly  experimental  character,  and  a  number 
of  chronicle-histories,  some  of  which,  like  the  three 
parts  of  Henry  VI.,  were  almost  certainly  written  in 
collaboration  with  other  playwrights.  The  comedies 
are  light,  full  of  ingenious  plays  on  words,  and  the 
verse  is  often  rhymed.  The  first  of  them,  at  least, 
shows  the  Influence  of  Lyly.  The  histories  also  betray 
a  considerable  delight  In  language  for  its  own  sake, 
and  the  Marlowesque  blank  verse,  at  Its  best  eloquent 
and  highly  poetical,  not  Infrequently  becomes  ranting, 
while  the  pause  at  the  end  of  each  line  tends  to 
become  monotonous.  No  copy  of  Romeo  and  Juliet 
in  its  earliest  form  Is  known  to  be  In  existence,  and 
the  extent  of  Shakspere's  share  in  Titus  Andronicus 
is  still  debated. 

The  second  period  contains  a  group  of  comedies 
marked  by  brilliance  in  the  dialogue ;  wholesomeness, 
capacity,  and  high  spirits  in  the  main  characters,  and 
a  pervading  feeling  of  good-humor.  The  histories 
contain  a  larger  comic  element  than  In  the  first  period, 
and  are  no  longer  suggestive  of  Marlowe.  Rhymes 
have  becom.e  less  frequent,  and  the  blank  verse  has 


30  INTRODUCTION 

freed  itself  from  the  bondage  of  the  end-stopped  line. 

The  plays  of  the  third  period  are  tragedies,  or 
comedies  with  a  prevailing  tragic  tone.  Shakspere 
here  turned  his  attention  to  those  elements  in  life 
which  produce  perplexity  and  disaster,  and  in  this 
series  of  masterpieces  we  have  his  most  magnificent 
achievement.  His  power  of  perfect  adaptation  of 
language  to  thought  and  feeling  had  now  reached  its 
height,  and  his  verse  had  become  thoroughly  flexible 
without  having  lost  strength. 

In  the  fourth  period  Shakspere  returned  to  comedy. 
These  plaj^s  written  during  his  last  years  in  London, 
are  again  romantic  in  subject  and  treatment,  and 
technically  seem  to  show  the  influence  of  the  earlier 
successes  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  But  in  place  of 
the  high  spirits  which  characterized  the  comedies  of 
the  earlier  periods  we  have  a  placid  optimism,  and  a 
recurrence  of  situations  which  are  more  ingenious 
than  plausible,  and  which  are  marked  externally  by 
reunions  and  reconciliations  and  internally  by 
repentance  and  forgiveness.  The  verse  is  singularly 
sweet  and  highly  poetical;  and  the  departure  from 
the  end-stopped  line  has  now  gone  so  far  that  we  see 
clearly  the  beginnings  of  that  tendency  which  went 
to  such  an  extreme  in  some  of  Shakspere's  successors 
that  it  at  times  became  hard  to  distinguish  the  metre 
at  all. 

In  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  and  Henry  VIII.,  Shaks- 
pere again  worked  in  partnership,  the  collaborator 
being,  in  all  probability,  John  Fletcher. 


SHAKSPERE  AND  ENGLISH   DRAMA        31 

Nothing  that  we  know  of  Shakspere's  life  from 
external  sources  justifies  us  in  saying,  as  has  fre- 
quently  been  said,  that  the  changes  of  mood  in  his 
work  from  period  to  period  corresponded  to  changes 
in  the  man  Shakspere.  As  an  artist  he  certainly 
seems  to  have  viewed  life  now  in  this  light,  now  in 
that:  but  it  is  worth  noting  that  the  period^ of  his 
gloomiest  plays  coincides  with  the  period  of  his  great- 
est worldly  prosperity.  It  has  already  been  hinted, 
tog,  that  much  of  his  change  of  manner  and  subject 
was  dictated  by  the  variations  of  theatrical  fashion 
and  the  example  of  successful  contemporaries. 

Throughout  nearly  the  whole  of  these  marvelously 
fertile  years  Shakspere  seems  to  have  stayed  in  Lon- 
don;  but  from  1610  to  1612  he  was 
Shakspere's  making  Stratford  more  and  more  his 
place  of  abode,  and  at  the  same  time 
he  was  beginning  to  write  less.  After  1611  he  wrote 
only  in  collaboration;  and  having  spent  about  five 
years  in  peaceful  retirement  in  the  town  from  which 
he  had  set  out  a  penniless  5^outh,  and  to  which  he 
returned  a  man  of  reputation  and  fortune,  he  died  on 
April  23,  1616.  His  only  son,  Hamnet,  having  died 
In  boyhood,  of  his  immediate  family  there  survived 
him  his  wife  and  his  two  daughters,  Susanna  and 
Judith,  both  of  whom  were  well  married.  He  lies 
buried  in  the  parish  church  of  Stratford. 


32  INTRODUCTION 


11.    A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream 

It  is  probable  that  the  comedy  of  A  Midsummer' 
Night's  Dream  was  written  about  1594  or  1595,  but 
this  date  is  the  result  of  fairly  plausible 
conjecture  rather  than  of  certain  infer- 
ence. We  know  that  it  was  in  existence  before  1538, 
for  in  that  year  appeared  a  book  called  Palladis 
Tamia,  by  Francis  Meres,  containing  an  explicit 
mention  of  the  play.  Meres's  book  is  a  kind  of  critical 
compilation,  with  a  "Comparative  Discourse  of  our 
English  Poets  with  the  Greek,  Latin,  and  Italian 
Poets/'  and  the  passage  in  which  the  name  of  the 
oresent  play  occurs  is  so  important  for  the  chronology 
of  Shakspere's  works  that  it  is  worth  while  to  quote 
it  verbatim : 

As  the  soul  of  Euphorbus  was  thought  to  live  in  Pythag- 
oras: so  the  sweet  witty  soul  of  Ovid  lives  in  mellifluous 
and  honey-tongued  Shakespeare.  Witness  his  Venus  and 
Adonis;  his  Lucrece ;  his  sugared  Sonnets,  among  his  private 
friends,  etc. 

As  Plautus  and  Seneca  are  accounted  the  best  for  Comedy 
and  Tragedy  among  the  Latins;  so  Shakespeare  among  the 
English  is  the  most  excellent  in  both  kinds  for  the  stage. 
For  Comedy:  witness  his  Gentlemen  of  Verona;  hh Errors; 
his  Loire's  Labour's  Lost;  his  Love's  Labour's  JVon^ ;  his 
Midsummer-Night's  Dream;    and  his  Merchant  of  Venice, 

iThis  play  has  not  been  certainly  identified.  If  it  is  not  lost,  it 
may  be  represented  in  a  revised  form  by  All's  Well  that  Ends  WelL 


A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  33 

For  Tragedy:  his  Richard  11. ,  Richard  III.,  Henry  IV. , 
King  John,   Titus  Andronicus,  and  his  Romeo  and  Juliet. 

As  Epius  Stolo  said  that  the  Muses  would  speak  with 
Plautus's  tongue,  if  they  would  speak  Latin:  so  I  say  that 
the  Muses  would  speak  with  Shakespeare's  fine  filed  phrase; 
if  they  would  speak  English. 

The  supposed  allusions  in  A  Midsummer-Night's 
Dream  to  contemporary  publications  and  events  are  of 
little  assistance  in  fixing  a  more  definite  date  than  is 
supplied  by  Meres's  reference.  Two  passages  pointed 
out  in  the  notes  have  been  believed  by  some  editors 
to  have  been  suggested  by  lines  in  Spenser,  but  the 
connection  is  uncertain.  The  long  speech  by  Titania 
In  II.  I.  88-114  is  more  Important  in  this  connection. 
It  is  quite  probable  that  this  remarkably  detailed 
description  of  extraordinary  w^eather  does  refer  to  the 
w^et  and  stormy  summer  w^hich  brought  distress  upon 
English  farmers  In  1594.  It  Is  recorded  also  that  \r\ 
the  same  year.  In  a  spectacle  presented  before  the 
Scottish  court,  a  Moor  w^as  substituted  for  a  lion  to 
prevent  a  panic  in  the  audience;  and  some  critics 
have  found  here  a  source  of  Snout's  apprehension 
that  the  ladles  may  ''be  afeard  of  the  lion."  These 
trifling  indications  at  least  harmonize  w^Ith  the 
evidence  from  the  meter  and  the  general  impression 
of  the  degree  of  maturity  Implied  in  the  style  and 
characterization  of  the  play  as  a  whole ;  and  there  is 
no  apparent  reason  for  doubting  that  it  was  first  per- 
formed about  the  date  of  Richard  II.,  and  probably 
shortly  before  the  Merchant  of  Venice, 


54  INTRODUCTION 

In  1600  two  separate  editions  of  A  Midsummer- 
Night's  Dream  were  published,  and  on  the  earlier  of 

these,  called  from  its  publisher  the 
Source  of  the         <<Tr'*  \     '     r\        ^     >'    ^u  ^    ^      ^    • 

r^^^^  l^isher  CJuarto,     the  present  text  is 

based.  The  second  or  ""  Roberts  '* 
quarto  is  a  reproduction  of  the  first  with  a  few  minor 
changes,  and  the  version  in  the  First  Folio  Edition, 
in  which  Shakspere's  plays  were  collected  in  1623, 
was  taken  from  the  second  quarto,  with  the  addition 
of  more  detailed  stage-directions  and  of  the  division 
into  acts. 

A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  is  one  of  the  two 
or  three  plays  of  Shakspere  for  the  main  plot  of 
which  no  original  has  been  found.  The 
piot!^*^^  ^  ^  tangled  love-affairs  of  Hermia  and 
Helena,  Demetrius  and  Lysander, 
belong  to  a  type  of  incident  occurring  with  great 
frequency  in  romantic  fiction,  and  it  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  this  series  of  situations,  the  least  interest- 
ing though  structurally  the  most  important  in  the 
comedy,  was  contrived  by  Shakspere  himself  as  a 
framework  for  the  fantasy  and  humor  in  which  lies 
its  chief  charm.  In  the  Diana  of 'Montemayor,  a 
popular  Spanish  collection  of  romantic  tales  from 
which  Shakspere  drew  part  of  the  plot  of  The  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona,  there  is  found  a  love-potion 
whose  efiFects  remotely  resemble  those  of  the  juice  of 
love-in-idleness.  The  marriage  festivities  of  Theseus., 
the  references  to  the  "rite  of  May"  and  the  hunting 
scene  in  IV.  I,  107  ff.,  and  the  name  of  Phllostrate, 


A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  35 

aie  probably  taken  from  Chaucer's  Knight* s  Tale, 
and  the  dramatist  may  have  got  further  information 
about  the  Athenian  "Duke"  from  Plutarch's  Life  of 
TheseuSj  to  which  we  know  he  had  access  in  Sir 
Thomas  North's  translation. 

The  story  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  caricatured  by 
the  artisans,  was  accessible  in  Chaucer's  Legend  of 
Good  Women,  in  the  Elizabethan  translation  of 
Ovid's  Metamorphoses  by  Golding — used  elsewhere 
by  Shakspere — and  in  various  contemporary  works. 
The  mutilated  form  in  which  the  story  is  presented 
here  makes  it  impossible  to  fix  on  any  one  of  these 
as  a  source,  and  the  dramatist  may  well  have  used 
merely  w^hat  he  happened  to  remember  of  the  tale. 
It  is  perhaps  worth  noting  that  the  main  theme  of 
this  story  is  practically  identical  with  that  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet,  w^hich  Shakspere  had  recently  treated 
tragically. 

His  memory  and  his  imagination  are  certainly  the 
main  source  of  the  fairy  material  of  the  play.  The 
name  Titania  is  used  by  Ovid  for  Diana,  and  Oberon 
was  familiar  in  the  romance  oiHuon  of  Bordeaux,  in 
The  Faerie  Queene,  and  in  Robert  Greene's  James  IV. 
The  Puck,  Robin  Goodfellow,  had  already  appeared 
in  literature  also,  but  he  was  a  household  name  in 
England.  But  these  more  or  less  literary  elements 
are  slight  compared  with  the  lore  about  fairies  with 
which  Shakspere,  like  every  English  boy  of  his  time, 
must  have  become  familiar  as  a  child.  Yet  it  is  clear 
that  on  the  popular  beliefs  about  fairyland  the  drama- 


36  INTRODUCTION 

list's  imagination  has  performed  important  changes, 
changes  which  in  turn  have  affected  popular  belief,,  so 
that  the  fairy-stories  which  a  modern  child  knows  are 
partly  due  to  pure  tradition,  partly  to  tradition  modi- 
fied by  Shakspere.  Shakspere  had,  of  course,  no  theories 
about  fairies;  it  was  his  imagination  not  his  reason 
that  refashioned  them.  It  will  help  us  to  keep  from 
getting  too  definite  notions  about  them  if  we  read 
along  with  the  woodland  scenes  of  this  play  the  great 
speech  by  Mercutio  in  Romeo  and  Juliet^  where  the 
mysterious  people  are  imagined  on  a  scale  that  would 
have  made  stage  representation  impossible. 

O,  then,  I  see  Queen  Mab  hath  been  with  you. 
She  is  the  fairies'  midwife,  and  she  comes 
In  shape  no  bigger  than  an  agate-stone 
On  the  fore-finger  of  an  alderman, 
Drawn  with  a  team  of  little  atomies 
Over  men's  noses  as  they  lie  asleep; 
Her  waggon-spokes  made  of  long  spinners'  legs. 
The  cover  of  the  wings  of  grasshoppers, 
Her  traces  of  the  smallest  spider  web. 
Her  collars  of  the  moonshine's  watery  beams, 
Her  whip  of  cricket's  bone,  the  lash  of  film, 
Her  waggoner  a  small  grey-coated  gnat. 
Not  half  so  big  as  a  round  little  worm 
Prick'd  from  the  lazy  finger  of  a  maid ; 
Her  chariot  is  an  empty  hazel-nut 
Made  by  the  joiner  squirrel,  or  old  grub. 
Time  out  o'  mind  the  fairies'  coachmakers. 
And  in  this  state  she  gallops  night  by  night 
Through  lovers'  brains,  and  then  they  dream  of  love; 
On  courtiers'  knees,  that  dream  on  curtsies  straight; 
O'er  lawyers'  fingers,  who  straight  dream  on  fees; 


A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  37 

O'er  ladies'  lips,  who  straight  on  kisses  dream, 
Which  oft  the  angry  Mab  with  blisters  plagues. 
Because  their  breath  with  sweetmeats  tainted  are. 
Sometime  she  gallops  o'er  a  courtier's  nose. 
And  then  dreams  he  of  smelling  out  a  suit; 
And  sometime  comes  she  with  a  tithe-pig's  tail 
Tickling  a  parson's  nose  as  'a  lies  asleep, 
Then  he  dreams  of  another  benefice. 
Sometime  she  driveth  o'er  a  soldier's  neck, 
And  then  dreams  he  of  cutting  foreign  throats, 
Of  breaches,  ambuscadoes,  Spanish  blades, 
Of  healths  five  fathom  deep ;    and  then  anon 
Drums  in  his  ear,  at  which  he  starts  and  wakes, 
And  being  thus  frighted  swears  a  prajer  or  two 
And  sleeps  again.    This  is  that  very  Mab 
That  plats  the  manes  of  horses  in  the  night. 
And  bakes  the  elf-locks  in  foul  sluttish  hairs. 
Which,  once  untangled,  much  misfortune  bodes. 

Such  fairies,  it  is  clear,  could  hardly  have  beca 
brought  into  the  personal  relations  with  Bottom 
which  are  so  amusingly  depicted  in  A  Midsummer- 
Night's  Dream,  and  they  must  be  regarded  as  the 
product  of  the  poet's  imagination  elaborating  another 
side  of  the  inconsistent  and  variable  popular  tradition. 

A  consideration  of  the  most  prominent  elements  in 

A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  makes  it  fairly  clear 

that  it  was  not  planned  in  the  first 

Occasion  of  ^  c  c  i_t 

the  Play  place    lor    performance    on    a    public 

stage.  The  comparative  weakness  of 
interest  in  the  main  plot,  the  opportunities  for 
spectacle,  and  the  abundance  of  song  and  dance,  sug- 
gest rather  a  court  festivity;  while  the  marriage  of 
2 


38  INTRODUCTION 

Theseus  at  the  beginning  and  the  wedding-song  at 
the  close,  point  to  some  nobleman's  marriage  as  the 
particular  occasion.  From  the  flattery  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  in  II.  i.  157-164  and  the  praise  of  chastity 
in  I.  i.  74-75,  it  may  be  further  inferred  that  the 
Queen  herself  was  present.  The  marriage  of  the 
Earl  of  Derby  to  Elizabeth  Vere  at  the  court  at 
Greenwich  in  1595,  and  that  of  the  Earl  of  Bedford 
to  Lucy  Harington  in  1594,  have  been  suggested  as 
ofiFering  appropriate  opportunities  for  the  display  of 
such  a  pageant  as  this  fairy  drama. 

Owing  to  its  lyric  quality  A  Midsummer-Night's 
Dream  contains  a  very  large  proportion  of  rhj^me, 
nearly  one-third  of  the  play  being  so 
written.  In  most  of  Shakspere's  plays 
the  rhymes  occur  in  decasyllabic  couplets  and  occa- 
sional songs;  in  this  there  is  much  greater  variety. 
Rhyming  couplets  are  frequently  used  in  descriptive 
passages  or  love  scenes.  The  ten-syllabled  lines  are 
sometimes  arranged  in  triplets  (II.  ii.  110-112;  III. 
li.  159-161),  or  in  quatrains  with  alternate  rhymes 
(III.  i.  105-8;  III.  il  122-5,  128-31,  442-5).  The 
fairies  speak  often  in  a  trochaic  measure,  usually  in 
lines  of  four  syllables,  and  the  rhythm  thus  obtained 
is  particularly  effective  for  its  suggestion  of  delicate 
lightness. 

Prose  is  used  by  the  artisans  in  ordinary  conversa- 
tion always,  by  the  lovers  and  the  group  in  the  court 
of  Theseus  only  in  Act  V.  when  they  are  jesting  over 
the  interlude,  by  the  fairies  never.     It  is,  therefore, 


A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  39 

employed  in  this  play  solely  for  humorous  purposes.  To 
heighten  the  com.edy  effect,  prose  and  verse  are  some- 
times used  side  by  side  contrastingly,  as  in  the  scenes 
between  Titania  and  Bottom  (III.  i.  127  ff.  and 
IV.  i.  1-44). 

The  blank, verse  of  the  play  is  that  M^hich,  since 
Marlowe.,  had  been  the  standard  meter  of  the  English 
drama.  The  normal  type  of  the  blank  verse  has  five 
iambic  feet,  that  is,  ten  syllables  with  the  accent  fall- 
ing on  the  even  syllables.  From  this  regular  form, 
however,  Shakspere  deviates  with  great  freedom,  the 
commonest  variations  being  the  following: 

1.  The  addition  of  an  eleventh  syllable,  e.  g.: 

There  will  |   I  stay  |  for  thee.  |  My  good   |  Lysan   |   defy 

I.  i.  168. 

Tell  you,  |  I  do  |  not,  nor  |  I  can  |  not  love  [  you,  II.  I.  201. 
Things  grow  |  ing  are  ]  not  ripe  |  until   1  their  sea  |  son, 

II.  ii.  117. 

Occasionally  this  extra  syllable  occurs  in  the 
middle  of  the  line.,  at  the  main  pause  known  as  the 
caesura,  which  is  found  most  frequently,  but  not 
always,  after  the  third  foot,  e.  g,: 

Not  for  I  thy  fair  |  y  King  |  dom.  \\  Fairies,  |  away,  II.  i. 
144. 

2.  Frequently  what  seems  an  extra  syllable  is  to  be 
slurred  in  reading;  e.  g,,  "spirit"  and  ''whether"  in 
the  following  lines  are  monosyllables : 

Awake  |  the  pert  |  and  nim  |  ble  spirit  |  of  mirth  |  ,  I.  i.  13. 
Whether,  if  |  you  yield  |  not  to  |  your  fath  |  er's  choice  |  , 
I.  i.  69. 


40  INTRODUCTION 

In 

Either  death  |  or  you  |  I'll  find  [  imme  ]  diately  |  ,  II.  ii.  156. 

"either"  is  a  monosyllable  and  ''immediately"  has 
four  syllables.  In  some  lines  it  is  doubtful  whether  a 
syllable  is  to  be  slurred  or  sounded  as  a  light  extra 
syllable,  as  e,  g.,  ''it"  in 

Our  sex,  |  as  well  ]  as  I,  |  may  chide  ]  you  for  it,  III.  ii.  218. 

Conversely,  a  dissyllable  may  sometimes  be  pro- 
nounced as  a  trisyllable;   e.  g., 

That  is,  I  hot  ice  |  and  won  |  d(e)rous  |  strange  snow  |  , 
V.  i.  59. 

3.  Sometimes  an  emphatic  syllable,  or  one  accom- 
panied by  a  pause,  stands  alone  as  a  foot,  without  an 
unaccented  syllable;   e.  g,. 

For  part  |  ing  us,  |  — O,  |  is  all  |  forgot  |  ,  III.  ii.  201. 

4.  Short  lines,  lacking  one  or  more  feet,,  occur ;  e,  g„ 

And  kill  me  too.  III.  ii.  49. 

Takes  it  in  might,  not  merit,  V.  i.  92. 

5.  Long  lines  of  twelve  syllables  occur ;  e,  g,, 
Uncouple  in  the  western  valley,  let  them  go,  IV.  i.  106. 
And  what  poor  duty  cannot  do,  noble  respect,  V.  i.  91. 

6.  Frequently,  especially  in  the  first  foot,  a  trochee 
is  substituted  for  an  iambus,  f.  e.,  the  accent  falls  on 
the  odd  instead  of  the  even  syllable ;  e,  g,. 

Turn''  'd  her  |  obedience,  which  is  due  to  me,  I.  i.  37. 
Sick^'ness  |  is  catching;  O,  were  favour  so,  I.  i.  186. 
A  privilege  ]  nev'er  |  to  see  me  more,  III.  ii.  79. 


A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  41 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  some  words  has  changed  since  Shakspere's 
time.    Thus  '^business"  has  three  syllables,  in 

I  must  employ  you  in  some  bus-i-ness,  I.  I.  124. 

"Edict"  is  accented  on  the  last  syllable  in 

It  stands  as  an  edict^  in  destiny,  I.  i.  151. 

And  ''antique"  on  the  first  in 

These  an'tique  fables,  nor  these  fairy  toys,  V.  i.  3. 

Words  ending  in  ''-ion"  could  have  a  dissyllabic 
termination ;  e,  g.. 

So  quick  bright  things  come  to  confus-i-on,  I.  i.  149. 

Although    differences    between    the    language    of 

Shakspere  and  that  of  our  own  day  are  obvious  to 

the  most  casual  reader,  there  is  a  risk 

Language.  i  i  i  i  • 

that  the  student  may  underestimate 
the  extent  of  these  differences,  and,  assuming  that 
similarity  of  form  implies  identity  of  meaning,  miss 
the  true  interpretation.  The  most  important  instances 
of  change  of  meaning  are  explained  in  the  notes ;  but 
a  clearer  view  of  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  con- 
trast between  the  language  of  ^  Midsummer-Nighf  s 
Drea?n  and  modern  English  will  be  gained  by  a 
classification  of  the  most  frequent  features  of  this 
contrast.  Some  of  the  Elizabethan  usages  are  merely 
results  of  the  carelessness  and  freedom  which  the 
more  elastic  standards  of  the  Elizabethan  time  per- 
mitted ;  others  are  forms  of  expression  at  that  time 
quite  accurate,  but  now  become  obsolete. 


42  INTRODUCTION 

(1)  Nouns,  (a)  Abstract  nouns  are  often  used 
in  the  plural;  e.  g,,  ''solemnities,"  I.  i.'ll ;  ''shames," 
III.  XI,  385. 

{h)  Nouns  are  sometimes  used  as  adjectives;  e,  g,, 
"the  Carthage  queen,"  I.  i.  173;  or  as  verbs;  e.  g,, 
^'versing  love,"  II.  i.  67. 

(2)  Pronouns,  {a)  The  possessive  "its"  did 
not  come  into  common  use  until  after  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  in  Shakspere,  as  in  other 
early  writers,  we  have  "his" ;  e.  g.,  "the  green  corn 
Hath  rotted  ere  his  youth,"  II.  i.  95 ;  "Dark  night, 
that  from  the  eye  his  function  takes,"  III.  ii.  177. 

(Z')  Confusion  between  the  personal  ajid  reflexive 
forms  is  common ;  e.  g,,  "L)^sander  and  myself  shall 
meet,"I.  i.  217. 

(c)  The  ethical  dative  is  commoner  in  Shakspere 
than  in  modern  speech;  e.  g.,  "roar  you  as  gently," 
I.  ii.  81 ;  "kill  me  a  red-hipp'd  humble-bee,"  IV. 
i.  11. 

(^)  The  modern  distinction  among  the  relative 
pronouns,  who,  which,  that,  as,  is  not  observed ;  e,  g., 
"every  man's  name,  which  is  thought  fit,"  I.  ii.  4. 

(£")  The  objective  case  of  the  personal  pronoun  is 
sometimes  used  reflexively  where  modern  English 
requires  no  object;  e.  g.,  "We'll  rest  w^,"  II.  ii.  37; 
"sit /^^^  down,"  IV.  i.  1. 

(3)  Adjectives,  {a)  Double  comparatives  and 
superlatives  occur;  e.  g.,  "What  worser  place,"  II.  f. 
208;   "for  the  more  better  assurance,"  III.  i.  19. 

(b)   Adjectives  are  sometimes  used  as  nouns;  e.g,, 


A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  43 

*^Demetrius  loves  your  fair,  O  happy  fair  T  I.  i.  182^ 
"Gentles,"  V.  i.  126. 

(4)  Verbs,  {a)  A  singular  verb  Is  often  found 
with  a  plural  subject;  e.  g.,  ''Where  oxllps  and  the 
nodding  violet  ^rozt^^/^  II.  I.  250;  "virtues  .  .  .  doth 
move  me,"  III.  I.  139. 

(Z>)  The  "n"  Is  frequently  dropped  from  the 
ending  of  the  past  participle  of  strong  verbs;  e.  g,, 
"spoke,"  I.  i.  112;  "broke,"  I.I.  175. 

{c)  Verbs  of  motion  are  at  times  omitted;  e.  g., 
"thou  shalt  not  from  this  grove,"  II.  I.  146;  "I'll  to 
my  queen,"  III.  il.  375. 

{d)  "Be"  Is  sometimes  used  for  "are"  In  the  plural 
of  the  present  Indicative;    e.  g.,  "Those  he  rubles," 

II.  I.  12;  "whereon  these  sleepers  he^  IV.  I.  85. 

(^)  "To"  Is  sometimes  used  with  the  Infinitive 
where  It  Is  omitted  now,,  and  conversely;  e,  g.,  "How 
long  within  this  wood  Intend  you^stay?"  II.  I.  138. 

(/)  The  Infinitive  with  "to"  Is  occasionally  used 
In  place  of  the  construction  with  a  participle  or  a 
gerund ;  e.  g.,  "make  a  heaven  of  hell.  To  die  upon 
the  hand,"   II.   I.  244;    "rivals,   to   mock   Helena," 

III.  II.  156. 

(^)  A  verb  now  only  Intransitive  may  be  used 
transitively;  e.  g.j  "her  mantle  she  did  fall/'  V.  I.  141. 

(5)  Adverbs.  {a)  Double  negatives  are  used 
with  a  merely  Intensive  force;  ^.^./'nor  never,"  II.  il. 
126;  "nor  none,"  III.  II.  135;  "I  do  not,  nor  I  can- 
not love  you,"  II.  i.  201. 

{b)   The  form  of  the  adjective  Is  often  used  for 


44  INTRODUCTION 

the  adverb ;  e.  g.,  ''that  kills  himself  most  gallant  for 
love,"  I.  ii.  23 ;  *'So  quick  bright  things  come  to  con- 
fusion," I.  i.  149. 

(6)  Prepositions.  {a)  These  are  sometimes 
omitted;  e.  g.,  ''Steal  forth  thy  father's  house,"  I.  i, 
164;  "fly  my  presence,"  II.  ii.  97. 

{b)  A  preposition  is  occasionally  used  where  a 
modern  verb  takes  a  direct  object;  e,  g.,  "marry  with 
Demetrius,"  I.  i.  40;  "admiring  of  his  qualities," 
I.  i.  231 ;  "warbling  of  one  song,"  III.  ii.  206. 

(r)  The  usage  of  prepositions  is  often  different 
from  that  of  today;  e,  g.,  ''Against  our  nuptial,  and 
confer  with  you  Of  something,"  I.  i.  125 ;  "Or  in  the 
beached  margent  of  the  sea,"  II.  i.  85 ;  "More  fond 
on  her  than  she  upon  her  love,"  II.  i.  266. 

(7)  Conjunctions.  These  are  often  omitted; 
€,  g.y  "look^you  arm  yourself,"  I.  i.  117;  "As^it 
should  pierce,"  II.  i.  160. 


a  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM 


ti> 


[DRAMATIS  PERSONiE 


Theseus,  duke  of  Athens. 
Egeus,  father  to  Hermia. 
Lysander,  betrothed  to  Hermia. 
Demetrius,  in  love  with  Hermia. 
Philostrate,  master  of  the  revels  to  Theseus. 


Quince,  a  carpenter. 
Bottom,  a  weaver. 
Flute,  a  bellows-mender, 
Snout,  a  tinker, 
Snug,  a  joiner. 
Starveling,  a  tailor, 


presenting 


Prologue. 

Pyramus. 

Thisbe. 

Wall, 

Lion. 

Moonshine, 


HiPPOLYTA,  queen  of  the  Amazons,  betrothed  to  TheseuSo 

Hermia,  daughter  to  Egeus,  betrothed  to  Lysander. 

Helena,  in  love  with  Demetrius. 

Oberon,  king  of  the  fairies. 

Titania,  queen  of  the  fairies. 

Robin  Goodfellow,  a  Puck. 

Peaseblossom, 

Cobweb,  i     r 

Moth, 

Mustardseed, 


Other  fairies  attending  their  King  and  Queem.. 
Attendants  on  Theseus  and  Hippolyta. 


Scene:  Athens^  and  a  ivood  near  i^.] 


A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S   DREAM 
ACT  I. 

[Scene  I.     Athens.     The  palace  of  Theseus. \ 

Enter  Theseus,  Hippolyta,  [Philostrate,]  with 
others. 

The.     Now,  fair  Hippolyta,  our  nuptial  hour 
Draws  on  apace.    Four  happy  days  bring  in 
Another  moon ;   but,  O,  methinks  how  slow 
This  old  moon  wanes !    She  lingers  my  desires, 
5  Like  to  a  step-dame  or  a  dow^ager 
Long  withering  out  a  young  man's  revenue. 

Hip.     Four  days  will  quickly  steep  themselves,  in 
night; 
Four  nights  will  quickly  dream  away  the  time ; 
And  then  the  moon,  like  to  a  silver  bow 
10  New-bent  in  heaven,  shall  behold  the  night 
Of  our  solemnities. 

The.  Go,  Philostrate, 

Stir  up  the  Athenian  youth  to  merriments ; 
Awake  the  pert  and  nimble  spirit  of  mirth ; 
Turn  melancholy  forth  to  funerals; 
15  The  pale  companion  is  not  for  our  pomp. 

[Exit  Philostrate.^ 
Hippolyta,  I  woo'd  thee  w^ith  my  sword, 
And  won  thy  love,  doing  thee  injuries; 


48°  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  i.i. 

But  I  will  wed  thee  In  another  key, 

With  pomp,  with  triumph,  and  with  revelling. 

Enter  Egeus,  Hermia,  Lysander,  and  Demetrius. 

E^e.    Happy  be  Theseus,  our  renowned  Duke!         20 
The.    Thanks,  good  Egeus ;  what's  the  news  with 

thee? 
E^e.     Full  of  vexation  come  I,  with  complaint 
Against  my  child,  my  daughter  Hermia. 
Stand  forth,  Demetrius.     My  noble  lord, 
This  man  hath  my  consent  to  marry  her.  25 

Stand-forth,  Lysander:   and,  my  gracious  Duke, 
This  man  hath  bewitch'd  the  bosom  of  my  child. 
Thou,  thou,  Lysander,  thou  hast  given  her  rhymes, 
And  interchang'd  love-tokens  with  my  child. 
Thou  hast  by  moonlight  at  her  window  sung  30 

With  faining  voice  verses  of  faining  love, 
And  stolen  the  impression  of  her  fantasy 
With  bracelets  of  thy  hair,  rings,  gawds,  conceits, 
Knacks,  trifles,  nosegays,  sweetmeats, — messengers 
Of  strong  prevailment  in  unhard'ned  youth.  35 

With  cunning  hast  thou  filch'd  my  daughter's  heart, 
Turn'd  her  obedience,  which  is  due  to  me, 
To  stubborn  harshness ;   and,  my  gracious  Duke, 
Be  It  so  she  will  not  here  before  your  Grace 
Consent  to  marry  with  Demetrius,  40 

I  beg  the  ancient  privilege  of  Athens, 
As  she  is  mine,  I  may  dispose  of  her; 
Which  shall  be  either  to  this  gentleman 
Or  to  her  death,  according  to  our  law 


I.  i.         A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  49 

45   Immediately  provided  in  that  case. 

The.     What  say  you,  Hermia?     Be  advis'd,  fafr 
maid. 
To  you  your  father  should  be  as  a  god, 
One  that  compos'd  your  beauties,  yea,  and  one 
To  whom  you  are  but  as  a  form  in  wax 
50  By  him  imprinted,  and  within  his  power 
To  leave  the  figure  or  disfigure  it. 
Demetrius  is  a  worthy  gentleman. 
Her,     So  is  Lysander. 

The.  In  himself  he  is ; 

But  in  this  kind,  wanting  your  father's  voice, 
55  The  other  must  be  held  the  worthier. 

Her.     I  would  my  father  look'd  but  with  my  eyes. 
The.     Rather  your  eyes  must  with  his  judgment 

look. 
Her.     I  do  entreat  your  Grace  to  pardon  me. 
I  know  not  by  what  power  I  am  made  bold, 
^  Nor  how  it  may  concern  my  modesty. 

In  such  a  presence  here  to  plead  my  thoughts ; 
But  I  beseech  your  Grace  that  I  may  know 
The  worst  that  may  befall  me  in  this  case. 
If  I  refuse  to  wed  Demetrius. 
65        The.    Either  to  die  the  death  or  to  abjure 
For  ever  the  society  of  men. 
Therefore,  fair  Hermia,  question  your  desires, 
Kno'v  of  your  youth,  examine  well  your  blood. 
Whether,  if  you  yield  not  to  your  father's  rhoice, 
^^  You  can  endure  the  livery  of  a  nun. 
For  aye  to  be  in  shady  cloister  mew'd, 


50  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  i.  i. 

To  live  a  barren  sister  all  your  life, 

Chanting  faint  hymns  to  the  cold  fruitless  moon. 

Thrice-blessed  they  that  master  so  their  blood 

To  undergo  such  maiden  pilgrimage;  ?5 

But  earthller  happy  is  the  rose  dlstlll'd, 

Than  that  which  withering  on  the  virgin  thorn 

Grows,  lives  and  dies  In  single  blessedness. 

Her.     So  will  I  grow,  so  live,  so  die,  my  lord, 
Ere  I  will  yield  my  virgin  patent  up  so 

Unto  his  lordship,  whose  unwished  yoke 
My  soul  consents  not  to  give  sovereignty. 

The.    Take  time  to  pause;    and,  by  the  next  new 
moon — 
The  seallng-day  betwixt  my  love  and  me, 
For  everlasting  bond  of  fellowship —  85 

Upon  that  day  either  prepare  to  die 
For  disobedience  to  your  father's  will, 
Or  else  to  wed  Demetrius,  as  he  would. 
Or  on  Diana's  altar  to  protest 
For  aye  austerity  and  single  life.  90 

Dem.    Relent,  sweet  Hermla;  and,  L3^sander,  yield 
Thy  crazed  title  to  my  certain  right. 

Lys.    You  have  her  father's  love,  Demetrius, 
Let  me  have  Hermia's ;   do  you  marry  him. 

Ege.     Scornful  Lysander!    true,  he  hath  my  love,  95 
And  what  is  mine  my  love  shall  render  him. 
And  she  is  mine,  and  all  my  right  of  her 
I  do  estate  unto  Demetrius. 

Lys.     I  am,  my  lord,  as  well  deriv'd  as  he, 
As  well  possess'd ;   my  love  is  more  than  his ;  loa 


I.  i.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  51 

My  fortunes  every  way  as  fairly  rank'd, 
If  not  with  vantage,  as  Demetrius'; 
And  which  is  more  than  all  these  boasts  can  be, 
I  am  belov'd  of  beauteous  Hermia. 
105  Why  should  not  I  then  prosecute  my  right? 
Demetrius,  I'll  avouch  it  to  his  head. 
Made  love  to  Nedar's  daughter,  Helena, 
And  won  her  soul ;   and  she,  sweet  lady,  dotes, 
Devoutly  dotes,  dotes  in  idolatry, 
^10  Upon  this  spotted  and  inconstant  man. 

The.     I  must  confess  that  I  have  heard  so  much, 
And  with  Demetrius  thought  to  have  spoke  thereof ; 
But,  being  over-full  of  self-affairs. 
My  mind  did  lose  it.     But,  Demetrius,  come ; 
^^^  And  come,  Egeus ;  you  shall  go  with  me, 
I  have  some  private  schooling  for  you  both. 
For  you,  fair  Hermia,  look  you  arm  yourself 
To  fit  your  fancies  to  your  father's  will ; 
Or  else  the  law  of  Athens  yields  you  up — 
120  Which  by  no  means  we  may  extenuate — 
.    To  death,  or  to  a  vow  of  single  life. 
Come,  my  Hippolyta;  what  cheer,  my  love? 
\        Demetrius  and  Egeus,  go  along. 

I  must  employ  you  in  some  business 
125  Against  our  nuptial,  and  confer  with  you 
Of  something  nearly  that  concerns  yourselves. 
Ege.    With  duty  and  desire  we  follow  you. 

[Exeunt  all  but  Lysander  and  Herrnia, 
Lys.     How  now,  my  love!    why  is  your  cheek  so 
pale? 


52  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  i.  i. 

How  chance  the  roses  there  do  fade  so  fast  ? 

Her.    Belike  for  want  of  rain,  which  I  could  well  130 
Beteem  them  from  the  tempest  of  my  eyes. 

Lys,    Ay  me !   for  aught  that  I  could  ever  read 
Could  ever  hear  by  tale  or  history, 
The  course  of  true  love  never  did  run  smooth; 
But,  either  it  was  different  in  blood, —  135 

Her,    O  cross !   too  high  to  be  enthrall'd  to  low. 

Lys,    Or  else  misgraffed  in  respect  of  years, — 

Her,    O  spite !   too  old  to  be  engag'd  to  young. 

Lys,    Or  else  it  stood  upon  the  choice  of  friends, — 

Her,    O  hell !   to  choose  love  by  another's  eyes.         i4o 

Lys,    Or,  if  there  were  a  sympathy  in  choice, 
War,  death,  or  sickness  did  lay  siege  to  it. 
Making  it  momentany  as  a  sound. 
Swift  as  a  shadow,  short  as  any  dream, 
Brief  as  the  lightning  in  the  collied  night,  145 

That,  in  a  spleen,  unfolds  both  heaven  and  earth, 
And  ere  a  man  hath  power  to  say  "Behold !" 
The  jaws  of  darkness  do  devour  it  up ; 
So  quick  bright  things  come  to  confusion. 

Her.    If  then  true  lovers  have  been  ever  crossed,       150 
It  stands  as  an"  edict  in  destiny. 
Then  let  us  teach  our  trial  patience. 
Because  it  is  a  customary  cross, 
As  due  to  love  as  thoughts  and  dreams  and  sighs, 
Wishes  and  tears,  poor  fancy's  followers.  155 

Lys.     A    good    persuasion ;     therefore,    hear    me, 
Hermia. 
I  ha^e  a  widow  aunt,  a  dowager 


i.  i.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  53 

Of  great  revenue,  and  she  hath  no  child. 

From  Athens  is  her  house  remote  seven  leagues ; 

"^160  And  she  respects  me  as  her  only  son. 

There,  gentle  Hermia,  may  I  marry  thee; 
And  to  that  place  the  sharp  Athenian  law 
Cannot  pursue  us.     If  thou  lov'st  me  then, 
Steal  forth  thy  father's  house  to-morrow  night; 

165  And  in  the  wood,  a  league  without  the  town, 
Where  I  did  meet  thee  once  with  Helena 
To  do  observance  to  a  morn  of  May, 
There  will  I  stay  for  thee. 

Her.  My  good  Lysander ! 

I  swear  to  thee,  by  Cupid's  strongest  bow, 

170   By  his  best  arrow  with  the  golden  head. 
By  the  simplicity  of  Venus'  doves,, 
By  that  which  knitteth  souls  and  prospers  loves, 
And  by  that  fire  which  burn'd  the  Carthage  queen. 
When  the  false  Troyan  under  sail  was  seen, 

175   By  all  the  vows  that  ever  men  have  broke. 
In  number  more  than  ever  women  spoke. 
In  that  same  place  thou  hast  appointed  me 
To-morrow  truly  will  I  meet  with  thee. 

Lys,     Keep    promise,    love.      Look,    here    comes 
Helena. 

Enter  Helena. 

180       Her.    God  speed  fair  Helena!    Whither  away? 
Hel.    Call  you  me  fair  ?    That  fair  again  unsay. 
Demetrius  loves  your  fair,  O  happy  fair! 
Your  eyes  are  lode-stars,  and  your  tongue's  sweet  air 


)4  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  i.  i. 

More  tuneable  than  lark  to  shepherd's  ear 

When  wheat  is  green,  when  hawthorn  buds  appear.      is3 

Sickness  is  catching;   O,  were  favour  so, 

Yours  would  I  catch,  fair  Hermia,  ere  I  go; 

My  ear  should  catch  your  voice,  my  eye  your  eye, 

My  tongue  should  catch  your  tongue's  sweet  melody. 

Were  the  world  mine,,  Demetrius  being  bated,  190 

The  rest  I'll  give  to  be  to  you  translated. 

O,  teach  me  how  you  look,  and  with  what  art 

You  sway  the  motion  of  Demetrius'  heart. 

Her.    I  frown  upon  him,  yet  he  loves  me  still. 

Hel.     O  that  your  frowns  would  teach  my  smiles  195 
such  skill ! 

Her.     I  give  him  curses,  yet  he  gives  me  love. 

Hel.     O  that  my  prayers  could  such  affection  move ! 

Her.    The  more  I  hate,  the  more  he  follows  me. 

Hel.    The  more  I  love,  the  more  he  hateth  me. 

Her.    His  folly,  Helena,  is  no  fault  of  mine.  200 

Hel.     None,  but  your  beauty.     Would  that  fault 
were  mine! 

Her.    Take  comfort ;  he  no  more  shall  see  my  face ; 
Lysander  and  myself  will  fly  this  place. 
Before  the  time  I  did  Lysander  see, 

Seem'd  Athens  as  a  paradise  to  me ;  205 

O,  then,  what  graces  in  my  love  do  dwell, 
That  he  hath  turned  a  heaven  unto  a  hell ! 

Lys.    Helen,  to  you  our  minds  w^e  will  unfold. 
To-morrow  night,  when  Phcebe  doth  behold 
Her  silver  visage  in  the  watery  glass,  210 

Decking  with  liquid  pearl  the  bladed  grass, 


I.  i.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  55 

A  time  that  lovers'  flights  doth  still  conceal, 
Through  Athens'  gates  have  we  devis'd  to  steal. 
Her.    And  in  the  wood.,  where  often  you  and  I 

215   Upon  faint  primrose-beds  v/ere  wont  to  lie. 
Emptying  our  bosoms  of  their  counsel  sweet, 
There  my  Lysander  and  m5/self  shall  meet ; 
And  thence  from  Athens  turn  away  our  eyes, 
To  seek  new  friends  and  stranger  companies. 

220  Farewell,  sweet  playfellow !    Pray  thou  for  us ; 

And  good  luck  grant  thee  thy  Demetrius ! 

Keep  word,  Lysander ;    we  must  starve  our  sight 

From  lovers'  food  till  morrow  deep  midnight. 

Lys,     I  w^ill,  my  Hermia. 

\^Exit  Herm. 

Helena,  adieu: 
225  As  5^ou  on  him,  Demetrius  dote  on  you ! 

[Exit 
Hel.    How  happy  some  o'er  other  some  can  be ! 

Through  Athens  I  am  thought  as  fair  as  she. 

But  what  of  that  ?    Demetrius  thinks  not  so ; 

He  will  not  know  what  all  but  he  do  know; 
230  And  as  he  errs,  doting  on  Hermia's  eyes, 

So  I,  admiring  of  his  qualities. 

Things  base  and  vile,  holding  no  quantity, 

Love  can  transpose  to  form  and  dignity. 

Love  looks  not  with  the  eyes  but  with  the  mind, 
235  And  therefore  is  wing'd  Cupid  painted  blind. 

Nor  hath  Love's  mind  of  any  judgment  taste; 

Wings  and  no  eyes  figure  unheedy  haste ; 

And  therefore  is  Love  said  to  be  a  child, 


56  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM 

Because  in  choice  he  is  so  oft  beguil'd. 
As  waggish  boys  in  game  themselves  forswear, 
So  the  boy  Love  is  perjur'd  every  where: 
For  ere  Demetrius  look'd  on  Hermia's  eyne., 
He  hail'd  down  oaths  that  he  was  only  mine; 
And  when  this  hail  some  heat  from  Hermia  felt, 
So  he  dissolv'd,  and  showers  of  oaths  did  melt. 
I  will  go  tell  him  of  fair  Hermia's  flight ; 
Then  to  the  wood  will  he  to-morrow  night 
Pursue  her ;   and  for  this  intelligence 
If  I  have  thanks,  it  is  a  dear  expense. 
But  herein  mean  I  to  enrich  my  pain, 
To  have  his  sight  thither  and  back  again. 


[Exit, 

[Scene  H.     Athens.     Quince's  houseS\ 

Enter  QuiNCE,  Snug,  Bottom,  Flute,  Snout,  a/z^ 
Starveling. 

Quin,    Is  all  our  company  here  ? 

Bot.  You  were  best  to  call  them  generally,  man 
by  man,  according  to  the  scrip. 

Quin.     Here  is  the  scroll  of  every  man's  name, 
which  is  thought  fit,  through  all  Athens,  to  play  in  5 
our  interlude  before  the  Duke  and  the  Duchess,  on 
his  wedding-day  at  night. 

Bot.  First,  good  Peter  Quince,  say  what  the  play 
treats  on,  then  read  the  names  of  the  actors,  and  so 
grow  to  a  point.  10 

Quin.     Marry,  our  play  is.  The  most  lamentable 


I.  ii.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  57 

comedy ,  and  most  cruel  death  of  Pyramus  and  Thisby, 
Bot.    A  very  good  piece  of  work,  I  assure  you,  and 
a  merry.     Now,  good  Peter  Quince,  call  forth  your 
actors  by  the  scroll.    Masters,  spread  yourselves. 

Quin,     Answer  as  I  call  you.     Nick  Bottom,  the 
weaver. 

Bot.     Ready.      Name  what  part  I   am  for,   and 
proceed. 

20        Quin.      You,    Nick    Bottom,    are    set    down    for 
Pyramus. 

Bot.    What  is  Pyramus?    A  lover,  or  a  tyrant? 
Quin.    A  lover,  that  kills  himself  most  gallant  for 
love. 
25       Bot.     That  will  ask  some  tears  in  the  true  per- 
forming of  it.     If  I  do  it,,  let  the  audience  look  to 
their  eyes.     I  will  move  storms,   I  will  condole  in 
some  measure.     To  the  rest.     Yet  my  chief  humour 
is  for  a  tyrant.     I  could  play  Ercles  rarely,  or  a  part 
30  to  tear  a  cat  in,  to  make  all  split. 
''  The  raging  rocks 
And  shivering  shocks 
Shall  break  the  locks 
Of  prison  gates; 
35  And  Phibbus'  car 

Shall  shine  from  far 
And  m.ake  and  mar 
The  foolish  Fates." 
This  was  lofty!     Now  name  the  rest  of  the  players. 
40  This  is  Ercles'  vein,  a  tyrant's  vein ;   a  lover  is  more 
condoling. 


58  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  i.  ii. 

Quin.     Francis  Flute,  the  bellows-mender. 

Flu.     Here,  Peter  Quince. 

Quin,     Flute,  you  must  take  Thisby  on  you. 

Flu.    What  is  Thisby?    A  wandering  knight?         45 

Quin.     It  is  the  lady  that  Pyramus  must  love. 

Flu.  Nay,  faith,  let  not  me  play  a  woman ;  I 
have  a  beard  coming. 

Quin.  ■  That's  all  one;  3^ou  shall  play  it  in  a  mask, 
and  you  may  speak  as  small  as  you  will.  so 

Bot.  An  I  may  hide  my  face,  let  me  play  Thisby 
too.  I'll  speak  in  a  monstrous  little  voice.  ''Thisne! 
Thisne!  Ah  Pyramus,  my  lover  dear!  thy  Thisby 
dear,  and  lady  dear!" 

Quin.     No,  no;    you  must  play  Pyramus;    and,  55 
Flute,  you  Thisby. 

Bot.    Well,  proceed. 

Quin.     Robin  Starveling,  the  tailor. 

Star.     Here,,  Peter  Quince. 

Quin.     Robin  Starveling,  you  must  play  Thisby's  60 
mother.    Tom  Snout,  the  tinker. 

Snout.     Here,  Peter  Quince. 

Quin.     You,   Pyramus'   father;    myself,  Thisby 's 
father.     Snug,  the  joiner,  you,  the  lion's  part;   and,  I    . 
hope,  here  is  a  play  fitted.  65 

Snug.  Have  you  the  lion's  part  written?  Pray 
you,  if  it  be,  give  it  me,  for  I  am  slow  of  study. 

Quin.  You  may  do  it  extempore,  for  it  is  nothing 
but  roaring. 

Bot.     Let  me  play  the  lion  too.     I  w^ill  roar,  that  I   70 
will  do  any  man's  heart  good  to  hear  me.     I  will 


i.  ii.         A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  59 

roar,  that  I  will  make  the  Duke  say,  ''Let  him  roar 
again,  let  him  roar  again." 

Quin.     An  you  should  do  it  too  terribly,  you  would 
75   fright  the  Duchess  and  the  ladies,  that  they  would 
shriek ;  and  that  were  enough  to  hang  us  all. 
All.    That  would  hang  us,  every  mother's  son. 
Bot,    I  grant  you,  friends,  if  you  should  fright  the 
ladies  out  of  their  wits,  they  would  have  no  more 
80   discretion  but  to  hang  us;    but  I  will  aggravate  my 
voice  so  that  I  will  roar  you  as  gently  as  any  sucking 
dove ;     I  will  roar  you  an  't  were  any  nightingale. 

Quin.     You  can  play  no  part  but  Pyramus;    for 
Pyramus  is  a  sweet-fac'd  man ;   a  proper  man,  as  one 
85  shall  see  in  a  summer's  day ;  a  most  lovely  gentleman- 
like man :   therefore  you  must  needs  play  Pyramus. 

Bot.    Well,  I  will  undertake  it.  What  beard  were 
I  best  to  play  it  in  ? 

Quin.    Why,  what  you  will. 
90       Bot.     I  will   discharge   it  in   either  your  straw- 
colour  beard,  your  orange-tawny  beard,  your  purple- 
in-grain  beard,  or  your  French-crown-colour  beard, 
your  perfect  yellow. 

Quin.  Some  of  yo'jr  French  crowns  have  no  hair 
95  at  all,  and  then  you  will  play  barefac'd.  But,  masters, 
here  are  your  parts;  and  I  am  to  entreat  you,  request 
you,  and  desire  you,  to  con  them  by  to-morrow  night ; 
and  meet  me  in  the  palace  wood,  a  mile  without  the 
town,  by  moonlight.  There  will  we  rehearse,  for  if 
100  we  meet  in  the  city,  we  shall  be  dogg'd  with  com- 
pany, and  our  devices  known.     In  the  meantime  I 


60  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  i.  ii. 

will  draw  a  bill  of  properties,  such  as  our  play  wants. 
I  pray  you,  fail  me  not. 

Bot,    We  will  meet;    and  there  we  may  rehearse 
most  obscenely  and  courageously.     Take  pains;    be  105 
perfect;   adieu. 

Quin,    At  the  Duke's  oak  we  meet. 

Bot.    Enough;  hold  or  cut  bow-strings. 

[Exeunt. 


ACT  II. 

[Scene  I.     A  wood  near  Athens^] 

Enter  a  Fairy  at  one  door  and  Robin  Goodfellow 
at  another, 

Robin,     How  now,  spirit!   whither  wander  you? 
Fai,    Over  hill,  over  dale, 

Thorough  bush,  thorough  brier, 
Over  park,  over  pale, 
?'  Thorough  flood,  thorough  fire, 

I  do  wander  every  where. 
Swifter  than  the  moon's  sphere ; 
And  I  serve  the  fairy  Queen,, 
To  dew  her  orbs  upon  the  green. 
10  The  cowslips  tall  her  pensioners  be; 

In  their  gold  coats  spots  you  see; 
Those  be  rubies,  fairy  favours. 
In  those  freckles  live  their  savours. 
I  must  go  seek  some  dewdrops  here 
15  And  hang  a  pearl  in  every  cowslip's  ear. 
Farewell,  thou  lob  of  spirits;    I'll  be  gone. 
Our  Queen  and  all  her  elves  come  here  anon. 

Robin.      The    King    doth    keep    his    revels    her* 
to-night ; 
Take  heed  the  Queen  come  not  within  his  sight. 
20  For  Oberon  is  passing  fell  and  wrath, 

61 


62  A  MIDSUMMER-xNIGHT'S  DREAM  ii.  L 

Because  that  she  as  her  attendant  hath 

A  lovely  boy  stolen  from  an  Indian  king. 

She  never  had  so  sw^eet  a  changeling; 

And  jealous  Oberon  would  have  the  child 

Knight  of  his  train,  to  trace  the  forests  wild ;  25 

But  she  perforce  withholds  the  loved  boy, 

Crowns  him  with  flowers,  and  makes  him  all  her  joy; 

And  now  they  never  meet  in  grove  or  green, 

By  fountain  clear,  or  spangled  starlight  sheen, 

But  they  do  square,  that  all  their  elves  for  fear  30 

Creep  into  acorn-cups  and  hide  them  there. 

Fai.   Either  I  mistake  your  shape  and  making  quite. 
Or  else  you  are  that  shrewd  and  knavish  sprite 
Call'd  Robin  Good  fellow.    Are  not  you  he 
That  frights  the  maidens  of  the  villagery,  35 

Skim  milk,  and  sometimes  labour  in  the  quern. 
And  bootless  make  the  breathless  housewife  churn, 
And  sometime  make  the  drink  to  bear  no  barm. 
Mislead  night-wanderers,  laughing  at  their  harm? 
Those  that  Hobgoblin  call  you,  and  sweet  Puck,  40 

You  do  their  work,,  and  they  shall  have  good  luck. 
Are  not  you  he  ? 

Robin,  Thou  speakest  aright ; 

I  am  that  merry  wanderer  of  the  night. 
I  jest  to  Oberon  and  make  him  smile 
When  I  a  fat  and  bean-fed  horse  beguile,  45 

Neighing  in  likeness  of  a  filly  foal ; 
And  sometime  lurk  I  in  a  gossip's  bowl, 
In  very  likeness  of  a  roasted  crab. 
And  when  she  drinks,  against  her  lips  I  boV 


II.  i.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  63 

50  And  on  her  withered  dewlap  pour  the  ale. 
The  wisest  aunt,  telling  the  saddest  tale, 
Sometime  for  three-foot  stool  mistaketh  me. 
Then  slip  I  from  her  bum,  down  topples  she, 
And  ^'tailor"  cries,  and  falls  into  a  cough ; 

55   And  then  the  whole  quire  hold  their  hips  and  laugh, 
And  waxen  in  their  mirth,  and  neeze,  and  swear 
A  merrier  hour  was  never  wasted  there. 
But,  room,  fairy !   here  comes  Oberon. 

Fai.    And  here  my  mistress.    Would  that  he  were 
gone! 

Enter  the  King  of  Fairies  [Oberon]  at  one  door 
with  his  train;  and  the  Queen  [Titania]  at 
another  with  hers, 

60        Obe.     Ill  met  by  moonlight,  proud  Titania. 

Tita.    What,  jealous  Oberon!  Fairies,  skip  hence: 
I  have  forsworn  his  bed  and  company. 

Obe.    Tarry,  rash  wanton !    Am  not  I  thy  lord? 

Tita.    Then  I  must  be  thy  lady ;  but  I  know 
65  When  thou  hast  stolen  away  from  fairy  land, 
And  in  the  shape  of  Corin  sat  all  day. 
Playing  on  pipes  of  corn  and  versing  love 
To  amorous  Phillida.    Why  art  thou  here. 
Come  from  the  farthest  steep  of  India? 
70   But  that,  forsooth,  the  bouncing  Amazon, 
Your  buskin'd  mistress  and  your  warrior  love. 
To  Theseus  must  be  wedded,  and  )^ou  come 
To  give  their  bed  joy  and  prosperity. 

Obe.    How  canst  thou  thus  for  shame,  Titaniw, 


64  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  ii.  i. 

Glance  at  my  credit  with  Hippolyta, 

Knowing  I  know  thy  love  to  Theseus? 

Didst  thou   not  lead   him   through   the  glimmering 

night 
From  Perigenia,  whom  he  ravished? 
And  make  him  with  fair  i^gle  break  his  faith, 
With  Ariadne,  and  Antiopa? 

Tita.    These  are  the  forgeries  of  jealousy; 
And  never,  since  the  middle  summer's  spring, 
Met  we  on  hill,  in  dale,  forest  or  mead. 
By  paved  fountain  or  by  rushy  brook. 
Or  in  the  beached  margent  of  the  sea, 
To  dance  our  ringlets  to  the  whistling  wind. 
But  with  thy  brawls  thou  hast  disturb'd  our  sport. 
Therefore  the  winds,  piping  to  us  in  vain. 
As  in  revenge,  hath  suck'd  up  from  the  sea 
Contagious  fogs;   which,  falling  in  the  land, 
Have  every  petty  river  made  so  proud 
That  they  have  overborne  their  continents. 
The  ox  hath  therefore  stretch'd  his  yoke  in  vain, 
The  ploughman  lost  his  sweat,  and  the  green  corn 
Hath  rotted  ere  his  youth  attain'd  a  beard. 
The  fold  stands  empty  in  the  drowned  field. 
And  crows  are  fatted  with  the  murrain  flock. 
The  nine  men's  morris  is  fill'd  up  with  mud. 
And  the  quaint  mazes  in  the  w^anton  green 
For  lack  of  tread  are  undistinguishable. 
The  human  mortals  want  their  winter  cheer; 
No  night  is  now  with  hymn  or  carol  blest ; 
Therefore  the  moon,  the  governess  of  floods, 


II.  i.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  65 

Pale  in  her  anger,  washes  all  the  air, 

105  That  rheumatic  diseases  do  abound. 

And  thorough  this  distemperature  we  see 
The  seasons  alter :    hoary-headed  frosts 
Fall  in  the  fresh  lap  of  the  crimson  rose, 
And  on  old  Hiems'  thin  and  icy  crown 

110  An  odorous  chaplet  of  sweet  summer  buds 
Is,  as  in  mockery,  set;   the  spring,  the  summer, 
The  childing  autumn,  angry  winter,  change 
Their  wonted  liveries ;    and  the  mazed  world. 
By  their  increase,  now  knows  not  which  is  which. 

.15  And  this  same  progeny  of  evils  comes 
From  our  debate,  from  our  dissension; 
We  are  their  parents  and  original. 

Obe.     E>D  you  amend  it  then;    it  lies  in  you. 
Why  should  Titania  cross  her  Oberon  ? 

120   I  do  but  beg  a  little  changeling  boy 
To  be  my  henchman. 

Tita.  Set  your  heart  at  rest ; 

The  fairy  land  buys  not  the  child  of  me. 
His  mother  w^as  a  votaress  of  my  order, 
And,  in  the  spiced  Indian  air,  by  night, 

125   Full  often  hath  she  gossip'd  by  my  side, 
And  sat  with  me  on  Neptune's  yellow  sands. 
Marking  the  embarked  traders  on  the  flood. 
When  we  have  laugh'd  to  see  the  sails  conceive 
And  grow  big-bellied  with  the  wanton  wind ; 

130  Which  she  with  pretty  and  with  swimming  gait 
Following,  her  vvomb  then  rich  with  my  young  squire 
Would  imitate,  and  sail  upon  the  land 


66  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  ii.  i. 

To  fetch  me  trifles,  and  return  again, 
As  from  a  voyage,  rich  with  merchandise. 
But  she,  being  mortal,  of  that  boy  did  die; 
And  for  her  sake  do  I  rear  up  her  boy, 
And  for  her  sake  I  will  not  part  with  him. 

Obe.    How  long  within  this  wood  intend  you  stay  ? 

Tita.     Perchance  till  after  Theseus'  wedding-day. 
If  you  will  patiently  dance  in  our  round 
And  see  our  moonlight  revels,  go  with  us ; 
If  not,  shun  me,  and  I  will  spare  your  haunts. 

Obe,    Give  me  that  boy,  and  I  will  go  with  thee. 

Tita.     Not  for  thy  fairy  kingdom.     Fairies,  away! 
We  shall  chide  downright,  if  I  longer  stay.  145 

[Exit  \^Titania  with  her  train]. 

Obe.    Well,  go  thy  way;  thou  shalt  not  from  this 
grove 
Till  I  torment  thee  for  this  injury. 
My  gentle  Puck,  come  hither.  Thou  rememb'rest 
Since  once  I  sat  upon  a  promontory, 
And  heard  a  mermaid  on  a  dolphin's  back  150 

Uttering  such  dulcet  and  harmonious  breath 
That  the  rude  sea  grew  civil  at  her  song, 
And  certain  stars  shot  madly  from  their  spheres, 
To  hear  the  sea-maid's  music? 

Robin.  I  remember.  I 

Obe.    That  very  time  I  saw,  but  thou  couldstnct,    155 
Flying  between  the  cold  moon  and  the  earth, 
Cupid  all  arm'd.     A  certain  aim  he  took 
At  a  fair  vestal  throned  by  the  west, 
And  loos'd  his  love-shaft  smartly  from  his  bow, 


i     II.  i.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  i1 

h 

160  As  it  should  pierce  a  hundred  thousand  hearts ; 

But  I  might  see  young  Cupid's  fiery  shaft 

Quench'd  in  the  chaste  beams  of  the  watery  mooi  , 

And  the  irnperial  votaress  passed  on, 

In  maiden  meditation,  fancy-free. 
165   Yet  mark'd  I  where  the  bolt  of  Cupid  fell. 

It  fell  upon  a  little  western  flower. 

Before  milk-w^hite,  now  purple  with  love's  woi^^d. 

And  maidens  call  it  love-in-idleness. 

Fetch  me  that  flower,  the  herb  I  shew'd  thee  orrce. 
170  The  juice  of  it  on  sleeping  eye-lids  laid 

Will  make  or  man  or  woman  madly  dote 

Upon  the  next  live  creature  that  it  sees. 

Fetch  me  this  herb ;  and  be  thou  here  again 

Ere  the  leviathan  can  sw^im  a  league. 
175       Robin.     I'll  put  a  girdle  round  about  the  f  arth 

In  forty  minutes. 


[Exit.] 


Obe.  Having  once  this  juije, 

I'll  watch  Titania  when  she  is  asleep, 
And  drop  the  liquor  of  it  in  her  eyes. 
The  next  thing  then  she  waking  looks  upon, 

180   Be  it  on  lion,  bear,  or  wolf,  or  bull, 
On  meddling  monkey,  or  on  busy  ape. 
She  shall  pursue  it  with  the  soul  of  love ; 
And  ere  I  take  this  charm  from  off  her  sigbc, 
As  I  can  take  it  with  another  herb, 

185   I'll  make  her  render  up  her  page  to  me. 
But  who  comes  here  ?    I  am  invisible ; 
And  I  will  overhear  their  conference. 


68  AMIDSUMMER-NIGHl'SDREAM  ii.  i. 

Enter  Demetrius,  Helena  following  him. 

Dem.     I  love  thee  not,  therefore  pursue  me  not. 
Where  Is  Lysander  and  fair  Hermia? 
The  one  Til  stay,  the  other  stayeth  me. 
Thou  told'st  me  they  were  stolen  unto  this  wood ; 
And  here  am  I,  and  wood  within  this  wood, 
Because  I  cannot  meet  my  Hermia. 
Hence,  get  thee  gone,  and  follow  me  no  more. 

Hel.    You  draw  me,  you  hard-hearted  adamant ; 
But  yet  you  draw  not  iron,  for  my  heart 
Is  true  as  steel.    Leave  you  your  power  to  draw, 
And  I  shall  have  no  power  to  follow  you. 

Dem.    Do  I  entice  you?    Do  I  speak  you  fair? 
Or,  rather,  do  I  not  in  plainest  truth 
Tell  you,  I  do  not,  nor  I  cannot  love  you  ? 

Hel,    And  even  for  that  do  I  love  3^ou  the  more. 
I  am  your  spaniel,  and,  Demetrius, 
The  more  you  beat  me,  I  will  fawn  on  you. 
Use  me  but  as  your  spaniel,  spurn  me,  strike  me, 
Neglect  me,  lose  me ;  only  give  me  leave, 
Unworthy  as  I  am  to  follow  you. 
What  worser  place  can  I  beg  in  your  love, — = 
And  yet  a  place  of  high  respect  with  me, — 
Than  to  be  used  as  you  use  your  dog  ? 

Dem,    Tempt  not  too  much  the  hatred  of  my  spirit. 
For  I  am  sick  when  I  do  look  on  thee. 

Hel,    And  I  am  sick  when  I  look  not  on  you. 

Dem,    You  do  impeach  your  modesty  too  much, 
To  leave  the  city  and  commit  yourself 


I II.  i.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  69 

Into  the  hands  of  one  that  loves  you  not; 
To  trust  the  opportunity  of  night 
And  the  ill  counsel  of  a  desert  place 
With  the  rich  worth  of  your  virginity. 
220       Hel.    Your  virtue  is  my  privilege.     For  that 
It  is  not  night  when  I  do  see  your  face, 
Therefore  I  think  I  am  not  in  the  night ; 
Nor  doth  this  w^ood  lack  worlds  of  company, 
For  you  in  my  respect  are  all  the  world. 
Then  how  can  it  be  said  I  am  alone. 
When  all  the  world  is  here  to  look  on  me  ? 

Dem.    I'll  run  from  thee  and  hide  me  in  the  brakes, 
And  leave  thee  to  the  mercy  of  wild  beasts. 

Hel.    The  wildest  hath  not  such  a  heart  as  you. 
|23o   Run  when  you  will,  the  story  shall  be  chang'd : 
Apollo  flies,  and  Daphne  holds  the  chase ; 
The  dove  pursues  the  griffin ;  the  mild  hind 
Makes  speed  to  catch  the  tiger;  bootless  speed. 
When  cowardice  pursues  and  valour  flies. 

Dem.    I  will  not  stay  thy  questions;  let  me  go; 
Or,  if  thou  follow  me,  do  not  believe 
But  I  shall  do  thee  mischief  in  the  wood. 

Hel.    Ay,  in  the  temple,  in  the  town,  the  field, 
You  do  me  mischief.    Fie,  Demetrius ! 
240  Your  wrongs  do  set  a  scandal  on  my  sex. 
We  cannot  fight  for  love,  as  men  may  do. 
We  should  be  woo'd  and  were  not  made  to  woo. 

[Exit  De?n.] 
I'll  follow  thee  and  make  a  heaven  of  hell, 
To  die  upon  the  hand  I  love  so  welL  [Exit, 


70  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  ii.  i. 

Obe,     Fare  thee  well,  nymph.     Ere  he  do  leave  245 
this  grove,,, 
Thou  shalt  fly  him  and  he  shall  seek  thy  love. 

Re-enter  [Robin  Goodfellow]. 

Hast  thou  the  flovs^er  there?    Welcome,  w^anderer. 

Robin.    Ay,  there  it  is. 

Obe,  I  pray  thee,  give  it  me. 

I  knovv^  a  bank  w^here  the  v^ild  thyme  blows, 
Where  oxlips  and  the  nodding  violet  grows,  250 

Quite  over-canopi'd  with  luscious  woodbine, 
With  sweet  musk-roses  and  w^ith  eglantine. 
There  sleeps  Titania  sometime  of  the  night,  1 

Luird  in  these  flowers  with  dances  and  delight;  ■ 

And  there  the  snake  throws  her  enamell'd  skin,  255 

Weed  wide  enough  to  wrap  a  fairy  in ; 
And  with  the  juice  of  this  I'll  streak  her  eyes, 
And  make  her  full  of  hateful  fantasies. 
Take  thou  some  of  it,  and  seek  through  this  grove. 
A  sweet  Athenian  lady  is  in  love  26o 

With  a  disdainful  youth.     Anoint  his  eyes. 
But  do  it  when  the  next  thing  he  espies 
May  be  the  lady.    Thou  shalt  know  the  man 
By  the  Athenian  garments  he  hath  on. 
Effect  it  with  some  care,  that  he  may  prove  265 

More  fond  on  her  than  she  upon  her  love; 
And  look  thou  meet  me  ere  the  first  cock  crow. 

Robin,    Fear  not,  my  lord,  your  servant  shall  do  so. 

[^Exeunt, 


A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  71 


[Scene  II.     Another  part  of  the  wood,] 

Enter  TiTANiA,  with  her  train. 

Tita.    Come,  now  a  roundel  and  a  fairy  song; 
Then,  for  the  third  part  of  a  minute,  hence; 
Some  to  kill  cankers  in  the  musk-rose  buds,, 
Some  war  with  rere-mice  for  their  leathern  wings 
To  make  my  small  elves  coats,  and  some  keep  back 
The  clamorous  owl  that  nightly  hoots  and  wonders 
At  our  quaint  spirits.     Sing  me  now  asleep ; 
Then  to  your  offices  and  let  me  rest. 


The  Fairies  sing, 

[1,    Fairy. 1      "You   spotted   snakes   with   double 
tongue. 
Thorny  hedgehogs,  be  not  seen ; 
Newts  and  blind-worms,  do  no  wrong, 
Come  not  near  our  fairy  queen." 

\^Cho.'\     'Thilomel,  with  melody 
Sing  in  our  sweet  lullaby; 
Lulla,  lulla,  lullaby;  lulla,  lulla,  lullaby. 
Never  harm. 
Nor  spell  nor  charm, 
Come  our  lovely  lady  nigh. 
So,  good  night,  with  lullaby." 


7?  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM         ii.  ii. 

i.  Fairy.    ''Weaving  spiders,  come  not  here;  20 

Hence,  you  long-legg'd  spinners,  hence! 
Beetles  black,  approach  not  near; 
Worm  nor  snail,  do  no  ofFence/' 

[Cho.']     'Thilomel,,  with  melody,"  etc. 

2.  Fairy.     Hence,  away !   now  all  is  well.  25 

One  aloof  stand  sentinel. 

[Exeunt  Fairies.^     Titania  sleeps. 

Enter  Oberon  [and  squeezes  the  flower  on  Titania  s 
eyelids^. 

Obe.  What  thou  seest  when  thou  dost  wake, 
Do  it  for  thy  true-love  take, 
Love  and  languish  for  his  sake. 
Be  it  ounce,  or  cat,  or  bear,  30 

Paid,  or  boar  with  bristled  hair, 
In  thy  eye  that  shall  appear 
When  thou  wak'st,  it  is  thy  dear. 
Wake  when  some  vile  thing  is  near. 

[Exit.l 

Enter  Lysander  and  Hermia. 

I^ys.     Fair  love,  you  faint  with  wandering  in  the 

wood ;  35 

And  to  speak  troth,  I  have  forgot  our  way. 
W^e'll  rest  us,,  Hermia,  if  you  think  it  good, 

And  tarry  for  the  comfort  of  the  day. 

Her.     Be  it  so,  Lysander.     Find  you  out  a  bed ; 
Jor  I  upon  this  bank  will  rest  mv  head. 


II.  ii.        A  MIDSUMMER-NIGMT'S  DREAM  73 

Lys.    One  turf  shall  serve  as  pillow  for  us  both ; 
One  heart,  one  bed,  two  bosoms  and  one  troth. 

Her.    Nay,  good  Lysander ;  for  my  sake,,  my  dear, 
Lie  further  off  yet ;   do  not  lie  so  near. 

Lys.    O,  take  the  sense,  sweet,  of  my  innocence ! 
Love  takes  the  meaning  in  love's  conference, 
I  mean,  that  my  heart  unto  yours  is  knit 
So  that  but  one  heart  we  can  make  of  it ; 
Two  bosoms  interchained  with  an  oath; 
So  then  two  bosoms  and  a  single  troth. 
Then  by  your  side  no  bed-room  me  deny; 
For  lying  so,  Hermia,  I  do  not  lie. 

Her.    Lysander  riddles  very  prettily. 
Now  much  beshrew  my  manners  and  my  pride, 
If  Hermia  meant  to  say  Lysander  lied. 
But,  gentle  friend,  for  love  and  courtesy 
Lie  further  off ;  in  human  modesty. 
Such  separation  as  may  well  be  said 
Becom.es  a  virtuous  bachelor  and  a  maid. 
So  far  be  distant ;  and,  good  night,  sweet  friend. 
Thy  love  ne'er  alter  till  thy  sweet  life  end ! 

Lys.    Amen,  amen,  to  that  fair  prayer,  say  I ; 
And  then  end  life  when  I  end  loyalty! 
Here  is  my  bed ;  sleep  give  thee  all  his  rest ! 

Her.     With  half  that  wish  the  wisher's  eyes  be 
press'd!  [They  sleep. 

Enter  [Robin  Goodfellow]. 

Robin.    Through  the  forest  have  I  gon€> 
But  Athenian  found  I  none, 


74  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM        ii.  ii. 

On  whose  eyes  I  might  approve 

This  flower's  force  in  stirring  love. 

Night  and  silence — Who  is  here?  70 

Weeds  of  Athens  he  doth  wear ! 

This  is  he,  my  master  said, 

Despised  the  Athenian  maid; 

And  here  the  maiden,  sleeping  sound, 

On  the  dank  and  dirty  ground.  75 

Pretty  soul !  she  durst  not  lie 

Near  this  lack-love  kill-courtesy. 

Churl,  upon  thy  eyes  I  throw 

All  the  power  this  charm  doth  owe. 

When  thou  wak'st,  let  love  forbid  so 

Sleep  his  seat  on  thy  eyelid; 

So  awake  when  I  am  gone, 

For  I  must  now  to  Oberon. 

[Exit. 

Enter  Demetrius  and  Helena,  running, 

Hel,     Stay  though  thou  kill  me,  sweet  Demetrius. 

Dem,     I  charge  thee,  hence,  and  do  not  haunt  me  85 
thus. 

HeL    O,  wilt  thou  darkling  leave  me?  Do  not  so. 

Dem,    Stay,  on  thy  peril ;   I  alone  will  go. 

[Exit. 

Hel,    O,,  I  am  out  of  breath  in  this  fond  chase ! 
The  more  my  prayer,  the  lesser  is  my  grace. 
Happy  is  Hermia,  wheresoe'er  she  lies,  90 

For  she  hath  blessed  and  attractive  eyes. 
How  came  her  eyes  so  bright  ?    Not  with  salt  tears ; 


II.  ii.        A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  75 

If  so,  my  eyes  are  oftener  wash'd  than  hers. 

No,  no,  I  am  as  ugly  as  a  bear, 
95   For  beasts  that  meet  me  run  away  for  fear; 

Therefore  no  marvel  though  Demetrius 

Do,  as  a  monster,  fly  my  presence  thus. 

What  wicked  and  dissembling  glass  of  mine 

Made  me  compare  with  Hermia's  sphery  eyne? 
100   But  who  is  here  ?    Lysander !  on  the  ground  ! 

Dead?  or  asleep?  I  see  no  blood,  no  wound. 

Lysander,  if  you  live,  good  sir,  awake. 

Lys.    [Awaking.^   And  run  through  fire  I  will  for 
thy  sweet  sake. 

Transparent  Helena!     Nature  shows  art, 
105  That  through  thy  bosom  makes  me  see  thy  heart. 

Where  is  Demetrius?    O,  how  fit  a  word 

Is  that  vile  name  to  perish  on  my  sword ! 
HeL     Do  not  say  so,  Lysander;  say  not  so. 

What  though  he  love  your  Hermia?     Lord,  what 
though  ? 
110  Yet  Hermia  still  loves  you ;  then  be  content. 

Lys.    Content  with  Hermia !    No ;  I  do  repent 

The  tedious  minutes  I  with  her  have  spent. 

Not  Hermia  but  Helena  I  love. 

Who  will  not  change  a  raven  for  a  dove? 
115  The  will  of  man  is  by  his  reason  sway'd ; 

And  reason  says  you  are  the  worthier  maid. 

Things  growing  are  not  ripe  until  their  season, 

So  I,  being  young,  till  now  ripe  not  to  reason ; 

And  touching  now  the  point  of  human  skill, 
120  Reason  becomes  the  marshal  to  my  will 


76  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM         ii.  ii. 

And  leads  me  to  your  eyes,  where  I  o'erlook 
Love's  stories  written  in  love's  richest  book. 

HeL    Wherefore  was  I  to  this  keen  mockery  born  ? 
When  at  your  hands  did  I  deserve  this  scorn? 
Is  't  not  enough,  is  't  not  enough,  young  man,  125 

That  I  did  never,  no,  nor  never  can, 
Deserve  a  sweet  look  from  Demetrius'  eye, 
But  you  must  flout  my  insuflficiency  ? 
Good  troth,  you  do  me  wrong,  good  sooth  you  do. 
In  such  disdainful  manner  me  to  woo.  130 

But  fare  you  well ;  perforce  I  must  confess 
I  thought  you  lord  of  more  true  gentleness. 
O,  that  a  lady,  of  one  man  refus'd. 
Should  of  another  therefore  be  abus'd!  p^   . 

Lys.     She  sees  not  Hermia.     Hermia,  sleep  thou 

there ;  135 

And  never  mayst  thou  come  Lysander  near ! 

For  as  a  surfeit  of  the  sweetest  things 

The  deepest  loathing  to  the  stomach  brings, 

Or  as  the  heresies  that  men  do  leave 

Are  hated  most  of  those  they  did  deceive,  140 

So  thou,  my  surfeit  and  my  heresy. 

Of  all  be  hated,  but  the  most  of  me! 

And,  all  my  powers,  address  your  love  and  might 

To  honour  Helen  and  to  be  her  knight.  ^  „   . 

itxit. 

Her,     [Awakingi.]     Help  me,  Lysander,  help  me! 

do  thy  best  1*5 

To  pluck  this  crawling  serpent  from  my  breast! 


II.  ii.        A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  77 

Ay  me,  for  pity !  what  a  dream  was  here ! 

Lysander,  look  how  I  do  quake  with  fear. 

Mechought  a  serpent  eat  my  heart  away, 
150  And  you  sat  smiling  at  his  cruel  prey. 

Lysander !  what,  remov'd  ?   Lysander !   lord ! 

What,  out  of  hearing?    Gone?    No  sound,  no  word? 

Alack,  where  are  you  ?    Speak,  an  if  you  hear ; 

Speak,  of  all  loves!     I  swoon  almost  with  fear. 
155   No?  then  I  well  perceive  you  are  not  nigh. 

Either  death  or  you  I'll  find  immediately. 

[Exit. 


ACT  III. 

[Scene  I.     The  wood,     Titania  lying  asleepS\ 

Enter  the  clowns  [Quince,  Snug,  Bottom,  Flut^ 
Snout  and  Starveling]. 

Bot.    Are  we  all  met  ? 

Quin.      Pat,   pat;    and  here's  a  marvellous  con- 
venient  place   for  our  rehearsal.     This   green   plot 
shall  be  our  stage,  this  hawthorn-brake  our  tiring- 
house;   and  we  will  do  it  in  action  as  we  will  do  it  5 
before  the  Duke. 

Bot.    Peter  Quince ! 

Quin.  What  say'st  thou,  bully  Bottom? 

Bot.    There  are  things  in  this  comedy  of  Pyramus 
and  Thisby  that  will  never  please.     First  Pyramus  10 
must  draw  a  sword  to  kill  himself,  which  the  ladies 
cannot  abide.     How  answer  you  that  ? 

Snout.     By  'r  lakin,  a  parlous  fear. 

Star.  I  believe  we  must  leave  the  killing  out, 
when  all  is  done.  15 

Bot.  Not  a  whit!  I  have  a  device  to  make  all 
well.  Write  me  a  prologue;  and  let  the  prologue 
seem  to  say,  we  will  do  no  harm  with  our  swords  and 
that  Pyramus  is  not  kill'd  indeed;  and,  for  the  more 

78 


III.  i.        A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  79 

20  better  assurance,  tell  them  that  I  Pyramus  am  not 
Pyramus,  but  Bottom  the  weaver.  This  will  put 
them  out  of  fear. 

Quin,    Well,  we  will  have  such  a  prologue;    and 
it  shall  be  written  in  eight  and  six. 
25       Bot.     No,  make  it  two  more;   let  it  be  written  in 
eight  and  eight. 

Snout.    Will  not  the  ladies  be  afeard  of  the  lion? 

Star,     I  fear  it,  I  promise  you. 

Bot.     Masters,  you  ought  to  consider  with  your- 

30  selves.    To  bring  in — God  shield  us ! — a  lion  among 

ladies,  is  a  most  dreadful  thing;    for  there  is  not  a 

more  fearful  wild-fowl  than  your  lion  living;  and  we 

ought  to  look  to  't. 

Snout.     Therefore  another  prologue  must  tell  he 
35   is  not  a  lion. 

Bot.  Nay,  you  must  name  his  name,  and  half  his 
face  must  be  seen  through  the  lion's  neck;  and  he 
himself  must  speak  through,  saying  thus,  or  to  the 
same  defect,  "Ladies,"  or  'Tair  ladies,  I  would  wish 
40  you,"  or  ''I  would  request  you,"  or  "I  would  entreat 
you,  not  to  fear,  not  to  tremble:  my  life  for  yours. 
If  you  think  I  come  hither  as  a  lion,  it  were  pity  of 
my  life.  No,  I  am  no  such  thing;  I  am  a  man  as 
other  men  are;"  and  there  indeed  let  him  name  his 
45   name,  and  tell  them  plainly  he  is  Snug  the  joiner. 

Quin.  Well,  it  shall  be  so.  But  there  is  two  hard 
things ;  tha^  is,  to  bring  the  moonlight  into  a  cham- 
ber; for,  you  know,  Pyramus  and  Thisby  meet  by 
moonlight. 


80  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM         in.  i. 

Snout.  Doth  the  moon  shine  that  night  we  pla^/  50 
our  play? 

Bot.  A  calendar,  a  calendar !  Look  in  the  almanac ! 
Find  out  moonshine,  find  out  moonshine. 

Quin.    Yes,  it  doth  shine  that  night, 

Bot.    Wh}^,  then  may  you  leave  a  casement  of  the  55 
great  chamber  window,  where  we  play,  open,  and  the 
moon  may  shine  in  at  the  casement. 

Quin.  Ay;  or  else  one  must  come  in  with  a  bush 
of  thorns  and  a  lantern,  and  say  he  comes  to  disfigure, 
or  to  present,  the  person  of  Moonshine.  Then,  there  60 
is  another  thing:  we  must  have  a  wall  in  the  great 
chamber;  for  Pyramus  and  Thisby,  says  the  story, 
■did  talk  through  the  chink  of  a  wall. 

Snout.  You  can  never  bring  in  a  wall.  What  say 
3^ou,  Bottom?  65 

Bot.  Some  man  or  other  must  present  Wall ;  and 
let  him  have  some  plaster,  or  some  loam,  or  some 
rough-cast  about  him,  to  signify  wall;  or  let  him 
hold  his  fingers  thus,  and  through  that  cranny  shall 
Pyramus  and  Thisby  whisper.  70 

Quin.  If  that  may  be,  then  all  is  well.  Come,  sit 
down,  every  mother's  son,  and  rehearse  your  parts. 
Pyramus,  you  begin.  When  you  have  spoken  your 
speech,  enter  into  that  brake.  And  so  every  one 
according  to  his  cue.  75 

Enter  RoBiN  GoODFELLOW  {^behind^. 

Robin.    What  hempen  home-spuns  have  we  swag- 
gering here, 


I 


III.  i.        A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  81 

So  near  the  cradle  of  the  fairy  queen  ? 
What,  a  play  toward!   I'll  be  an  auditor; 
An  actor  too  perhaps,  if  I  see  cause. 
80        Quin.    Speak,  Pyramus.    Thisby,  stand  forth. 

Bot.      ''Thisby,    the    flowers    of    odious    savours 

sweet," — 
Quin,  Odorous,  odorous. 

Bot.    ''odours  savours  sweet; 

So  hath  thy  breath,  my  dearest  Thisby  dear. 
85   But  hark,  a  voice !   Stay  thou  but  here  awhile, 
And  by  and  by  I  will  to  thee  appear." 

[Exit. 
Robin.    A  stranger  Pyramus  than  e'er  play'd  here. 

iExit^. 
Flu.     Must  I  speak  now? 

Quin.    Ay,  marry,  must  you ;  for  you  must  under- 
go stand  he  goes  but  to  see  a  noise  that  he  heard,  and  is 
to  come  again. 

Flu.     "Most  radiant  Pyramus,  most  lily-white  of 
hue. 
Of  colour  like  the  red  rose  on  triumphant  brier, 
Most  brisky  juvenal  and  eke  most  lovely  Jew, 
95  As  true  as  truest  horse  that  yet  would  never  tire, 

I'll  meet  thee,  Pyramus,  at  Ninny's  tomb." 
Quin.    "Ninus'  tomb,"  man.    Why,  you  must  not 
speak  that  yet;   that  you  answer  to  Pyramus.     You 
speak  all  your  part  at  once,  cues  and  all.     Pyramus 
100   enter.    Your  cue  is  past ;  it  is  "never  tire." 

Flu.    O, — "As  true  as  truest  horse,  that  yet  would 
never  tire." 


82  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM         iii.  i. 

[Re-enter  Robin  Goodfellow,  and  Bottom  with 
an  ass's  head.^ 

Bot.    *'If  I  were,  fair  Thisby,  I  were  only  thine.'' 
Quin.    O  monstrous!  O  strange!  We  are  haunted. 
Pray,  masters!   fly,  masters!   Help! 

[Exeunt  [Quince,  Snug,  Flute,  Snout, 
and  Starveling^. 
Robin.      I'll  follow  you,  I'll  lead  you  about  a  round,   los 
Through    bog,    through    bush,    through    brake, 
through  brier. 
Sometime  a  horse  I'll  be,  sometime  a  hound, 
A  hog,  a  headless  bear,,  sometime  a  fire  ; 
And  neigh,  and  bark,  and  grunt,  and  roar,  and  burn. 
Like  horse,  hound,  hog,  bear,  fire,  at  every  turn.  no 

[Exit. 
Bot.    Why  do  they  run  away?    This  is  a  knavery 
of  them  to  make  me  afeard. 

Re-enter  Snout. 

Snout.    O  Bottom,  thou  art  chang'd !    What  do  I 
see  on  thee? 

Bot.    What  do  you  see?    You  see  an  ass-head  of  iis 
your  own,  do  you?  [Exit  Snout.} 

Re-enter  Quince. 

Quin.     Bless  thee,  Bottom!   bless  thee!    thou  art 
translated. 

[Exit. 
Bot.     I  see  their  knavery;   this  is  to  make  an  ass 


III.  i.        A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  83 

;^2o  of  me,,  to  fright  me,  if  they  could.     But  I  will  not 

stir  from  this  place,  do  what  they  can.     I  will  walk 

up  and  down  here,  and  I  will  sing,  that  they  shall 

hear  I  am  not  afraid.  [Sings.] 

''The  ousel  cock  so  black  of  hue, 

125  With  orange-tawny  bill, 

The  throstle  with  his  note  so  true. 
The  wren  with  little  quill," — 
Tit  a.    [Awaking.]     What  angel  wakes  me  from 

my  flowery  bed  ? 
Bot.     [Sings.] 

'*The  finch,  the  sparrow,  and  the  lark, 
130  The  plain-song  cuckoo  gray, 

Whose  note  full  many  a  man  doth  mark. 
And  dares  not  answer  nay;" — 
for,  indeed,  who  would  set  his  wit  to  so  foolish  a 
bird  ?    Who  would  give  a  bird  the  lie,  though  he  cry 
135   "cuckoo"  never  so? 

Tita.     I  pray  thee,  gentle  mortal,  sing  again. 
Mine  ear  is  much  enamour'd  of  thy  note ; 
So  is  mine  eye  enthralled  to  thy  shape ; 
And  thy  fair  virtues,  force  perforce,  doth  move  me 
34JJ  On  the  first  view  to  say,  to  swear,  I  love  thee. 

Bot.     Methinks,  mistress,  you  should  have  little 

reason  for  that ;  and  yet,  to  say  the  truth,  reason  and 

love  keep  little  company  together  now-a-days;    the 

more  the  pity  that  some  honest  neighbours  will  not 

»45  make  them  friends.     Nay,  I  can  gleek  upon  occasion. 

Tita.    Thou  art  as  wise  as  thou  art  beautiful. 

Bot.    Not  so,  neither ;  but  if  I  had  wit  enough  to 


84  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM         iii.  i. 

get  out  of  this  wood,  I  have  enough  to  serve  mine 
own  turn. 

Tita.    Out  of  this  wood  do  not  desire  to  go ;  isa 

Thou  shalt  remain  here,  whether  thou  wilt  or  no. 
I  am  a  spirit  of  no  common  rate ; 
The  summer  still  doth  tend  upon  my  state ; 
And  I  do  love  thee ;  therefore,  go  with  me. 
I'll  give  thee  fairies  to  attend  on  thee,  155 

And  they  shall  fetch  thee  jewels  from  the  deep, 
And  sing  while  thou  on  pressed  flowers  dost  sleep. 
And  I  will  purge  thy  mortal  grossness  so 
That  thou  shalt  like  an  airy  spirit  go. 
Peaseblossom !   Cobweb !   Moth  !  and  Mustardseed !     i^o 

Enter  Peaseblossom,  Cobweb,  Moth,  and 
Mustardseed. 

Peas,     Ready. 

Cob.  And  I. 

Moth,  And  I. 

Mus.  And  I. 

AIL  Where  shall  we  go? 

Tita.    Be  kind  and  courteous  to  this  gentleman^ 
Hop  in  his  walks  and  gambol  in  his  eyes ; 
Feed  him  with  apricocks  and  dewberries. 
With  purple  grapes,  green  ligs,  and  mulberries; 
The  honey-bags  steal  from  the  humble-bees. 
And  for  night-tapers  crop  their  waxen  thighs 
And  light  them  at  the  fiery  glow-worm's  eyes, 
To  have  my  love  to  bed  and  to  arise ; 


iii„  i.        A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  85 

170   And  pluck  the  wings  from  painted  butterflies 
To  fan  the  moonbeams  from  his  sleeping  eyes. 
Nod  to  him,  elves,,  and  do  him  courtesies. 
Peas,     Hail,  mortal ! 
Cob.    Hail! 
175       Moth.    Hail! 
Mus.    Hail! 

Bot.      I   cry   your   worships   mercy,   heartily.      I 
beseech  your  worship's  name. 
Cob.    Cobweb. 
180       Bot.    I  shall  desire  you  of  more  acquaintance,  good 
Master  Cobweb.     If  I  cut  my  finger,  I  shall  make 
bold  with  you.    Your  name,  honest  gentleman  ? 
Peas.     Peaseblossom. 

Bot.    I  pray  you  commend  me  to  Mistress  Squash, 

185  your  mother,  and  to  Master  Peascod,  your  father. 

Good   Master   Peaseblossom,   I   shall   desire  you  of 

more  acquaintance  too.     Your  nam.e,  I  beseech  you, 

sir? 

Mus.  Mustardseed. 
190  Bot.  Good  Master  Mustardseed,  I  know  your 
patience  well.  That  same  cowardly,  giant-like  ox-beef 
hath  devoured  many  a  gentleman  of  your  house.  I 
promise  you  your  kindred  hath  made  my  eyes  water 
ere  now.  I  desire  you  more  acquaintance,  good 
195   Master  Mustardseed. 

Tita.     Come,  wait  upon  him;    lead  him  to  my 

bower. 
The  moon  methinks  looks  with  a  watery  eye. 
And  when  she  weeps,  w^eeps  every  little  flower. 


%6  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM        m.  ii. 

Lamenting  some  enforced  chastity. 
Tie  up  my  love's  tongue,  bring  him  silently.  200 

l^Exeunt, 


[Scene  II.    Another  part  of  the  wood,'] 

Enter  Oberon. 

Obe,    I  wonder  if  Titania  be  awakM ; 
Then,  what  it  was  that  next  came  in  her  eye, 
Which  she  must  dote  on  in  extremity. 

Enter  Robin  Goodfellow\ 

Here  comes  my  messenger. 

How  now,  mad  spirit! 
What  night-rule  now  about  this  haunted  grove?  5 

Robin.    My  mistress  with  a  monster  is  in  love. 
Near  to  her  close  and  consecrated  bower, 
While  she  was  in  her  dull  and  sleeping  hour, 
A  crew  of  patches,  rude  mechanicals. 
That  work  for  bread  upon  Athenian  stalls,  10 

Were  met  together  to  rehearse  a  play 
Intended  for  great  Theseus'  nuptial-day. 
The  shallowest  thickskin  of  that  barren  sort. 
Who  Pyramus  presented  in  their  sport. 
Forsook  his  scene  and  ent'red  in  a  brake.  IS 

When  I  did  him  at  this  advantage  take. 
An  ass's  nole  I  fixed  on  his  head. 
Anon  his  Thisby  must  be  answered, 


rn.  li.       A  MIDSUMMER- NIGHT'S  DREAM  87 

And  forth  my  mimic  comes.    When  they  him  spy, 
20  As  wild  geese  that  the  creeping  fowler  eye, 

Or  russet-pated  choughs,  many  in  sort, 

R^ising  and  cawing  at  the  gun's  report,. 

Sever  themselves  and  madly  sweep  the  sky. 

So,  at  his  sight,  away  his  fellows  fly ; 
25  And,  at  our  stamp,  here  o'er  and  o'er  one  falls ; 

He  murder  cries,  and  help  from  Athens  calls. 

Their  sense  thus  weak,   lost  with   their   fears  thus 
strong, 

Made  senseless  things  begin  to  do  them  wrong; 

For  briers  and  thorns  at  their  apparel  snatch  ; 

Some   sleeves,    some   hats,    from   yielders   all    things 
30  catch. 

I  led  them  on  in  this  distracted  fear, 

And  left  sweet  Pyramus  translated  there; 

When  in  that  moment,  so  it  came  to  pass, 

Titania  wak'd  and  straightway  lov'd  an  ass. 
35        Obe,    This  falls  out  better  than  I  could  devise. 

But  hast  thou  yet  latch'd  the  Athenian's  eyes 

With  the  love-juice,  as  I  did  bid  thee  do? 

Robin.  I  took  him  sleeping, — that  is  finish'd  too, — • 

And  the  Athenian  woman  by  his  side ; 
40  That,  when  he  wak'd,  of  force  she  must  be  ey'd. 

Enter  Demetrius  and  Hermia. 

Obe,     Stand  close;  this  is  the  same  Athenian. 
Robin,    This  is  the  woman,  but  not  this  the  man. 
Dem.     O,  why  rebuke  you  him  that  loves  you  so? 
Lay  breath  so  bitter  on  your  bitter  foe. 


88  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM       iii.  ii. 

Her.     Now  I  but  chide;    but  I  should  use  thee 
worse,  45 

For  thou,  I  fear,  hast  given  me  cause  to  curse. 
If  thou  hast  slain  Lysander  in  his  sleep, 
Being  o'er  shoes  in  blood,  plunge  in  knee-deep, 
And  kill  me  too. 

The  sun  was  not  so  true  unto  the  day  50 

As  he  to  me :  would  he  have  stolen  away 
From  sleeping  Hermia?    I'll  believe  as  soon 
f  his  whole  earth  may  be  bor'd  and  that  the  moon 
May  through  the  center  creep  and  so  displease 
Her  brother's  noontide  with  the  Antipodes.  55 

It  cannot  be  but  thou  hast  murd'red  him ; 
So  should  a  murderer  look,  so  dread,  so  grim. 

Dem,  So  should  the  murdered  look,  and  so  should  I, 
Pierc'd  through  the  heart  with  your  stern  cruelty ; 
Yet  you,  the  murderer,  look  as  bright,  as  clear,  60 

As  yonder  Venus  in  her  glimmering  sphere. 

Her,    What 's  this  to  my  Lysander  ?  Where  is  he  ? 
Ah,  good  Demetrius,  wilt  thou  give  him  me? 

Dem,     I  had  rather  give  his  carcass  to  my  hounds. 

Her,     Out,  dog!    out,  cur!    thou  driv'st  me  past 
the  bounds  ^ 

Of  maiden's  patience.     Hast  thou  slain  him,  then? 
Henceforth  be  never  numb'red  among  men ! 
O,  once  tell  true,  tell  true,  even  for  my  sake ! 
Durst  thou  have  look'd  upon  him  being  awake. 
And  hast  thou  kill'd  him  sleeping?     O  brave  touch!   70 
Could  not  a  worm,  an  adder,  do  so  much? 
An  adder  did  it ;  for  with  doubler  tongue 


III.  ii.       A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  89 

Than  thine,  thou  serpent,  never  adder  stung. 

Dem.     You  spend  your  passion  on  a  misprls'd  mood, 
75   I  am  not  guilty  of  Lysander's  blood ; 
Nor  is  he  dead,  for  aught  that  I  can  tell. 

Her,     I  pray  thee,  tell  me  then  that  he  is  well. 
Dem.    An  if  I  could,  what  should  I  get  therefore? 
Her.    A  privilege  never  to  see  me  more. 
80  And  from  thy  hated  presence  part  I  so : 
See  me  no  more,  whether  he  be  dead  or  no. 

[Exit, 
Dem.    There  is  no  following  her  in  this  fierce  vein  ; 
Here  therefore  for  a  while  I  will  remain. 
So  sorrow's  heaviness  doth  heavier  grow 
85   For  debt  that  bankrupt  sleep  doth  sorrow  owe  ; 
Which  now  in  some  slight  measure  it  will  pay, 
If  for  his  tender  here  I  make  some  stay. 

[Lies  doivn  [and  sieeps'\. 
Obe.    What  hast  thou  done?    Thou  hast  mistaken 
quite 
And  laid  the  love-juice  on  some  true-love's  sight. 
90   Of  thy  misprision  must  perforce  ensue 

Some  true  love  turn'd  and  not  a  false  turn'd  true. 
Robin.    Then  fate  o'er-rules,  that,  one  man  holding 
troth, 
A  million  fail,  confounding  oath  on  oath. 

Obe.    About  the  wood  go  swifter  than  the  wind 
95  And  Helena  of  Athens  look  thou  find. 
All  fancy-sick  she  is  and  pale  of  cheer 
With  sighs  of  love,  that  costs  the  fresh  blood  dear. 
By  some  illusion  see  thou  bring  her  here. 


90  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM       iii.  ii. 

I'll  charm  his  eyes  against  she  do  appear. 

Robin.     I  go,  I  go;  look  how  I  go,  loo 

Swifter  than  arrow  from  the  Tartar's  bow. 

[Exit. 
Obe,     Flower  of  this  purple  dye 
Hit  with  Cupid's  archery,. 
Sink  in  apple  of  his  eye. 

When  his  love  he  doth  espy,  105 

Let  her  shine  as  gloriously 
As  the  Venus  of  the  sky. 
When  thou  wak'st,  if  she  be  by, 
Beg  of  her  for  remedy. 

Re-enter  Robin  Goodfellow. 

Robin,  Captain  of  our  fairy  band,  no 

Helena  is  here  at  hand ; 

And  the  youth,,  mistook  by  me, 

Pleading  for  a  lover's  fee. 

Shall  we  their  fond  pageant  see? 

Lord,  what  fools  these  mortals  be !  115 

Obe,     Stand  aside.    The  noise  they  make 

Will  cause  Demetrius  to  awake. 
Robin.  Then  will  two  at  once  woo  one  ; 

That  must  needs  be  sport  alone. 

And  those  things  do  best  please  me  120 

That  befall  preposterously. 

Enter  Lysander  and  Helena. 
Lys.     Why  should  you  think  that  I  should  woo  in 


silo  ii.       A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  91 

Scorn  and  derision  never  come  in  tears. 
Look,  when  I  vow,  I  weep ;  and  vows  so  born, 
125        In  their  nativity  all  truth  appears. 

How  can  these  things  in  me  seem  scorn  to  you, 
Bearing  the  badge  of  faith,  to  prove  them  true? 
Hel.    You  do  advance  your  cunning  more  and  more. 
When  truth  kills  truth,  O  devilish-holy  fray ! 
130  These  vows  are  Hermia's ;  will  you  give  her  o'er  ? 
Weigh  oath  with  oath,  and  you  will  nothing  weigh. 
Your  vows  to  her  and  me,  put  in  two  scales, 
Will  even  weigh,  and  both  as  light  as  tales. 

Lys.     I  had  no  judgment  when  to  her  I  swore. 
135       Hel.    Nor  none,  in  my  mind,  now  you  give  her  o'er. 
Lys.    Demetrius  loves  her,  and  he  loves  not  you. 
Dem.      [Jwaking.~\      O   Helen,  goddess,  nymph, 
perfect,  divine! 
To  what,  my  love,  shall  I  compare  thine  eyne  ? 
Crystal  is  muddy.     O,  how  ripe  in  show 
140 .  Thy  lips,  those  kissing  cherries,  tempting  grow ! 
That  pure  congealed  white,  high  Taurus'  snow, 
Fann'd  with  the  eastern  wind,  turns  to  a  crow 
When  thou  hold'st  up  thy  hand.    O,  let  me  kiss 
This  princess  of  pure  white,  this  seal  of  bliss! 
145       Hel.    O  spite !   O  hell !   I  see  you  all  are  bent 
To  set  against  me  for  your  merriment. 
If  you  were  civil  and  knew  courtesy, 
You  would  not  do  me  thus  much  injury. 
Can  you  not  hate  me,  as  I  know  you  do, 
150   But  you  must  join  in  souls  to  mock  me  too? 
If  you  were  men,  as  men  you  are  in  show, 


92  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM       in   il 

You  would  not  use  a  gentle  lady  so ; 

To  vow,  and  swear,  and  superpraise  my  parts,, 

When  I  am  sure  you  hate  me  with  your  hearts. 

You  both  are  rivals,  and  love  Hermla ;  155 

And  now  both  rivals,  to  mock  Helena. 

A  trim  exploit,  a  manly  enterprise. 

To  conjure  tears  up  in  a  poor  maid's  eyes 

With  your  derision  !    None  of  noble  sort 

Would  so  offend  a  virgin  and  extort  iCO 

A  poor  soul's  patience,  all  to  make  you  sport. 

Lys,    You  are  unkind,  Demetrius;   be  not  so; 
For  you  love  Hermia;  this  you  know  I  know. 
And  here,  with  all  good  will,  with  all  my  heart, 
In  Hermia's  love,  I  yield  you  up  my  part ;  165 

And  yours  of  Helena  to  me  bequeath, 
Whom  I  do  love  and  will  do  till  my  death. 

Hel.    Never  did  mockers  waste  more  idle  breath, 

Dem.    Lysander,  keep  thy  Hermia;  I  will  none. 
If  e'er  I  lov'd  her,  all  that  love  is  gone.  .  i70 

My  heart  to  her  but  as  guest-wise  sojourn'd, 
And  now  to  Helen  is  it  home  return'd, 
There  to  remain. 

Lys,  Helen,  it  is  not  so. 

Dem.    Disparage  not  the  faith  thou  dost  not  know. 
Lest,,  to  thy  peril,  thou  aby  it  dear.  175 

Look,  where  thy  love  comes ;  yonder  is  thy  dear. 

Re-enter  Hermia. 

Her,     Dark  night,  that  from  the  eye  his  function 
takes, 


III.  ii.       A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  93 

The  ear  more  quick  of  apprehension  makes ; 
Wherein  it  doth  impair  the  seeing  sense, 
180   It  pays  the  hearing  double  recompense. 

Thou  art  not  by  mine  eye,  Lysander,  found ; 
Mine  ear,  I  thank  it,  brought  me  to  thy  sound. 
But  why  unkindly  didst  thou  leave  me  so  ? 

Lys.    Why  should  he  stay,  whom  love  doth  press 

to  go? 
Her.     What  love  could  press  Lysander  from  my 
185  side  ? 

Lys.    Lysander's  love,  that  would  not  let  him  bide, 
Fair  Helena,  who  more  engilds  the  night 
Than  all  yon  fiery  oes  and  eyes  of  light. 
Why  seek'st  thou  me?     Could  not  this  make  thee 
know, 
190  The  hate  I  bare  thee  made  me  leave  thee  so  ? 

Her.    You  speak  not  as  you  think.    It  cannot  be. 
Hel.    Lo,  she  is  one  of  this  confederacy ! 
Now  I  perceive  they  have  conjoin'd  all  three 
To  fashion  this  false  sport,  in  spite  of  me. 
195   Injurious  Hermia!  most  ungrateful  maid! 

Have  you  conspir'd,  have  you  with  these  contriv'd 
To  bait  me  with  this  foul  derision  ? 
Is  all  the  counsel  that  we  two  have  shar'd, 
K    The  sisters'  vows,  the  hours  that  we  have  spent, 
%o  When  we  have  chid  the  hasty-footed  time 
For  parting  us, — O,  is  all  forgot? 
All  school-days'  friendship,  childhood  innocence? 
We,,  Hermia,  like  two  artificial  gods. 
Have  with  our  needles  created  both  one  flower, 


94  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM       iii.  ii. 

Both  on  one  sampler,  sitting  on  one  cushion, . 

Both  warbling  of  one  song,  both  in  one  key, 

As  if  our  hands,  our  sides,  voices  and  minds, 

Had  been  incorporate.    So  we  grew  together, 

Like  to  a  double  cherry,  seeming  parted, 

But  yet  an  union  in  partition  ; 

Two  lovely  berries  moulded  on  orfe  stem; 

So  with  two  seeming  bodies,  but  one  heart; 

Two  of  the  first,  like  coats  in  heraldry. 

Due  but  to  one  and  crowned  with  one  crest. 

And  will  you  rend  our  ancient  love  asunder. 

To  join  with  men  in  scorning  your  poor  friend? 

It  is  not  friendly,  't  is  not  maidenly. 

Our  sex  as  well  as  I,  may  chide  you  for  it. 

Though  I  alone  do  feel  the  injury. 

Her,     I  am  amazed  at  your  passionate  words. 
I  scorn  you  not;  it  seems  that  you  scorn  me. 

HeL    Have  you  not  set  Lysander,  as  in  scorn. 
To  follow  me  and  praise  my  eyes  and  face  ? 
And  made  your  other  love,  Demetrius, 
Who  even  but  now  did  spurn  me  with  his  foot, 
To  call  me  goddess,  nymph,  divine  and  rare. 
Precious,  celestial?    Wherefore  speaks  he  this 
To  her  he  hates?    And  wherefore  doth  Lysander 
Deny  your  love,  so  rich  within  his  soul. 
And  tender  me,  forsooth,  affection. 
But  by  your  setting  on,  by  your  consent  ? 
What  though  I  be  not  so  In  grace  as  you, 
So  hung  upon  with  love,  so  fortunate. 
But  miserable  most,  to  love  unlov'd  ? 


III.  ii.       A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  95 

235  This  you  should  pity  rather  than  despise. 

Her,    I  understand  not  what  you  mean  by  this. 
Hel.    Ay,  do,  persever,  counterfeit  sad  looks, 
Make  mouths  upon  me  when  I  turn  my  back, 
r      Wink  each  at  other,  hold  the  sweet  jest  up; 
240  This  sport,  well  carried,  shall  be  chronicled. 

If  you  have  any  pity,  grace,  or  manners, 
I;        You  would  not  make  me  such  an  argument. 
i       But  fare  ye  well ;  't  is  partly  my  own  fault, 
Which  death  or  absence  soon  shall  remedy. 
245       Lys.     Stay,  gentle  Helena ;  hear  my  excuse, 
My  love,,  my  life,  my  soul,  fair  Helena! 
HeL    O  excellent ! 

Her,  Sweet,  do  not  scorn  her  so. 

Dem,    If  she  cannot  entreat,  I  can  compel. 
Lys,    Thou  canst  compel  no  more  than  she  entreat. 
Thy  threats  have  no  more  strength  than  her  weak 
250  prayers. 

Helen,  I  kve  thee ;  by  my  life,  I  do !  ^ 

I  swear  by  that  which  I  will  lose  for  thee, 
To  prove  him  false  that  says  I  love  thee  not. 
Dem,    I  say  I  love  thee  more  than  he  can  do. 
255       Lys,     If  thou  say  so,  withdraw,  and  prove  it  too. 
Dem,     Quick,  come! 

Her,  Lysander,  whereto  tends  all  this? 

Lys.    Away,  you  Ethiope! 

Dem,  No,  no;  he'll  [but] 

Seem  to  break  loose.    Take  on  as  you  would  follow. 
But  yet  come  not.    You  are  a  tame  man,  go ! 


96  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM       iii.  ii. 

Lys,     Hang  off,  thou  cat,  thou  burr !     Vile  thing, 
let  loose. 
Or  I  will  shake  thee  from  me  like  a  serpent ! 

Her.    Why  are  you  grown  so  rude  ?  What  change 
is  this? 
Sweet  love, — 

Lys.    Thy  love !     Out,  tawny  Tartar,  out ! 
Out,  loathed  medicine!     O  hated  potion,  hence! 

Her.     Do  you  not  jest? 

Hel.  Yes,  sooth;  and  so  do  you. 

Lys.     Demetrius,  I  will  keep  my  word  with  thee. 

Dem.     I  w^ould  I  had  your  bond,  for  I  perceive 
A  weak  bond  holds  5  ou.     I'll  not  trust  your  word. 

Lys.    What,  should  I  hurt  her,  strike  her,  kill  her 
dead? 
Although  I  hate  her,  I'll  not  harm  her  so. 

Her.     What,  can  you  do  me  greater  harm  than 
hate,? 
Hate  me !  wherefore  ?    O  me !  what  news,  my  love ! 
Am  not  I  Hermia?    Are  not  you  Lysander? 
I  am  as  fair  now  as  I  was  erewhile. 
Since  night  you  lov'd  me ;  yet  since  night  you  left  me : 
Why,  then  you  left  me — O,  the  gods  forbid ! — 
In  earnest,  shall  I  say? 

Lys.  Ay,  by  my  life ; 

And  never  did  desire  to  see  thee  more. 
Therefore  be  out  of  hope,  of  question,  doubt; 
Be  certain,  nothing  truer;   't  is  no  jest 
That  I  do  hate  thee  and  love  Helena. 

Her.    O  me!  you  juggler!  you  canker-blossom! 


III.  ii.       A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  97 

You  thief  of  love !    What,  have  you  come  by  night 

And  stolen  my  love's  heart  from  him? 

Hel,  Fine,  \    faith! 

285   Have  you  no  modesty,  no  maiden  shame. 

No  touch  of  bashf ulness  ?    What,  w^  111  you  tear 

Impatient  answers  from  my  gentle  tongue? 

Fie,  fie !  you  counterfeit,  you  puppet,  you ! 

Her.     Puppet  ?    Why  so  ?    Ay,  that  way  goes  the 
game. 
290   Now  I  perceive  that  she  hath  made  compare 

Between  our  statures ;  she  hath  urg'd  her  height ; 

And  with  her  personage,  her  tall  personage. 

Her  height,,  forsooth,  she  hath  prevall'd  with  him. 

And  are  you  grown  so  high  in  his  esteem, 
295   Because  I  am  so  dwarfish  and  so  low? 

How  low  am  I,  thou  painted  maypole?    Speak, 

How  low  am  I  ?    I  am  not  yet  so  low 

But  that  my  nails  can  reach  unto  thine  eyes. 

HeL    I  pray  you,  though  you  mock  me,  gentlemen, 
300   Let  her  not  hurt  me.    I  was  never  curst ; 

I  have  no  gift  at  all  in  shrewishness ; 

I  am  a  right  maid  for  my  cowardice. 

Let  her  not  strike  me.    You  perhaps  may  think, 

Because  she  is  something  lower  than  myself, 

That  I  can  match  her. 
305       Her.  Lower!  hark,  again. 

Hel.     Good  Hermia,  do  not  be  so  bitter  with  me» 

I  evermore  did  love  you,  Hermia, 

Did  ever  keep  your  counsels,  never  wrong'd  you ; 

Save  that,  in  love  unto  Demetrius, 


98  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM       ni.  ii. 

I  told  him  of  your  stealth  unto  this  wood.  310 

He  followed  you ;  for  love  I  followed  him ; 

But  he  hath  chid  me  hence  and  threat'ned  me 

To  strike  me,  spurn  me,  nay,  to  kill  me  too. 

And  now,  so  you  will  let  me  quiet  go, 

To  Athens  will  I  bear  my  folly  back  315 

And  follow  you  no  further.    Let  me  go. 

You  see  how  simple  and  how  fond  I  am. 

Her,    Why,  get  )^ou  gone;  who  is  't  that  hinders 
you  ? 

HeL    A  foolish  heart,  that  I  leave  here  behind. 

Her,    What,  with  Lysander  ? 

HeL  With  Demetrius.   320 

Lys.     Be  not  afraid ;    she  shall   not  harm   thee, 
Helena. 

Dem,     No  sir,  she  shall  not,  though  you  take  her 
part. 

HeL    O,,  when  she  's  angry,  she  is  keen  and  shrewd ! 
She  was  a  vixen  when  she  went  to  school ; 
And  though  she  be  but  little,  she  is  fierce.  325 

Her,    Little  again  !    Nothing  but  low  and  little ! 
Why  will  you  suffer  her  to  flout  me  thus  ? 
Let  me  come  to  her. 

Lys,  Get  you  gone,  you  dwarf, 

You  minimus,  of  hindering  knot-grass  made; 
You  bead,  you  acorn. 

Dem,  You  are  too  officious  330 

In  her  behalf  that  scorns  your  services. 
Let  her  alone ;  speak  not  of  Helena ; 
Take  not  her  part ;  for,  if  thou  dost  intend 


III.  ii.       A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  99 

Never  so  little  show  of  love  to  her, 
Thou  shalt  aby  ft. 
335       Lys.  Now  she  holds  me  not. 

Now  follow,  If  thou  dar'st,  to  try  whose  right. 
Of  thine  or  mine.  Is  most  In  Helena. 

Dem,     Follow!     Nay,  I'll  go  with  thee,  cheek  by 
jowl. 

[Exeunt  Lysander  and  Demetrius, 
Her,    You,  mistress,  all  this  coll  Is  'long  of  you. 
Nay,  go  not  back. 
340       Hel.  I  will  not  trust  you,  I, 

Nor  longer  stay  in  your  curst  company. 
Your  hands  than  mine  are  quicker  for  a  fray. 
My  legs  are  longer  though,  to  run  away. 

{Exit^,, 
Her.    I  am  amaz'd,,  and  know  not  what  to  say. 

[Exit, 
345        Obe,    This  Is  thy  negligence.     Still  thou  mistak'st, 
Or  else  committ'st  thy  knaveries  wilfully. 

Robin.     Believe  me,  king  of  shadows,  I  mistook. 
Did  not  you  tell  me  I  should  know  the  man 
By  the  Athenian  garments  he  had  on  ? 
350  And  so  far  blameless  proves  my  enterprise, 
That  I  have  'nointed  an  Athenian's  eyes; 
And  so  far  am  I  glad  it  so  did  sort, 
As  this  their  jangling  I  esteem  a  sport. 

Obe.  Thou  see'st  these  lovers  seek  a  place  to  fight; 
S55   Hie  therefore,  Robin,  overcast  the  night. 
The  starry  welkin  cover  thou  anon 
With  drooping  fog  as  black  as  Acheron, 


100  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM       ni.  ii. 

And  lead  these  testy  rivals  so  astray 
As  one  come  not  within  another's  way. 
Like  to  Lysander  sometime  frame  thy  tongue,  360 

Then  stir  Demetrius  up  with  bitter  wrong; 
And  sometime  rail  thou  like  Demetrius; 
And  from  each  other  look  thou  lead  them  thus. 
Till  o'er  their  brows  death-counterfeiting  sleep 
With  leaden  legs  and  batty  wings  doth  creep.  365 

Then  crush  this  herb  into  Lysander 's  eye ; 
Whose  liquor  hath  this  virtuous  property, 
To  take  from  thence  all  error  with  his  might, 
And  make  his  eyeballs  roll  with  wonted  sight. 
When  they  next  wake,  all  this  derision  370 

Shall  seem  a  dream  and  fruitless  vision ; 
And  back  to  Athens  shall  the  lovers  wend, 
With  league  whose  date  till  death  shall  never  end. 
Whiles  I  in  this  affair  do  thee  employ, 
I'll  to  my  queen  and  beg  her  Indian  boy;  375 

And  then  I  will  her  charmed  eye  release 
From  monster's  view,  and  all  things  shall  be  peace. 
Robin.     My  fairy  lord,  this  must  be  done  with 
haste. 
For  night's  swift  dragons  cut  the  clouds  full  fast, 
And  yonder  shines  Aurora's  harbinger,  380 

At  whose  approach,  ghosts,  wandering  here  and  there, 
Troop  home  to  churchyards.     Damned  spirits  all, 
That  in  crossways  and  floods  have  burial. 
Already  to  their  wormy  beds  are  gone. 
For  fear  lest  day  should  look  their  shames  upon,  385 

They  wilfully  themselves  exile  from  light 


III.  ii.       A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  ^i]^ 

And  must  for  aye  consort  with  black-brow'd  night. 

Obe.     But  we  are  spirits  of  another  sort. 
I  with  the  morning's  love  have  oft  made  sport, 
390  And,  like  a  forester,  the  groves  may  tread, 
Even  till  the  eastern  gate,  all  fiery-red, 
Opening  on  Neptune  with  fair  blessed  beams. 
Turns  into  yellow  gold  his  salt  green  streams. 
But,  notwithstanding,  haste,  make  no  delay. 
395  We  may  effect  this  business  yet  ere  day. 

[Exit,] 
Robin,    Up  and  down,  up  and  down, 
I  will  lead  them  up  and  down. 
I  am  fear'd  in  field  and  town. 
Goblin,  lead  them  up  and  down. 
400   Here  comes  one. 

Re-enter  Lysander. 
Lys,     Where  art  thou,  proud  Demetrius?     Speak 

thou  now. 
Robin.     Here,  villain;   drawn  and  ready.    Where 

art  thou? 
Lys.    I  will  be  with  thee  straight. 
Robin.  Follow  me,  then. 

To  plainer  ground. 

[Exit  Lysander,  as  following  the  voice,] 

Re-enter  Demetrius. 
Dem.  Lysander,  speak  again ! 

405  Thou  runaway,  thou  coward,  art  thou  fled? 

Speak!    In  some  bush?     Where  dost  thou  hide  rhy 
head? 


102  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM       iii.  ii. 

Robin,     Thou  coward,  art  thou  bragging  to  the 
stars, 
Telling  the  bushes  that  thou  look'st  for  wars, 
And  wilt  not  come?     Come,  recreant;    come,  thou 

child, 
I'll  whip  thee  with  a  rod.     He  is  defil'd 
That  draws  a  sword  on  thee. 

Dem,  Yea,  art  thou  there? 

Robin.     Follow  my  voice.    We'll  try  no  manhood 

here.  [Exeunt. 

[Re-enrrr  Lysander.] 

Lys.     He  goes  before  me  and  still  dares  me  on. 
When  I  come  where  he  calls.,  then  he  is  gone. 
The  villain  is  much  lighter-heel'd  than  I ; 
I  followed  fast,  but  faster  he  did  fly. 
That  fallen  am  I  in  dark  uneven  way. 
And  here  will  rest  me.     Come,  thou  gentle  day! 

[Lies  down. 
For  if  but  once  thou  show  me  thy  grey  light, 
ril  find  Demetrius  and  revenge  this  spite. 

[Sleeps,] 

Re-enter  Robin  Goodfellow  and  Demetrius. 

Robin,     Ho,  ho,  ho!    Coward,  why  com'st  thou 
not? 

Dem,    Abide  me,  if  thou  dar'st ;  for  well  I  wot 
Thou  runn'st  before  me,  shifting  every  place, 
And  dar'st  not  stand,  nor  look  me  in  the  face. 
Where  art  thou  now  ? 


iiL  ii.       A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  103 

425       Robin.  Come  hither;   I  am  here. 

Dem.     Nay,  then,  thou  mock'st  me.     Thou  shalt 
buy  this  dear, 
If  ever  I  thy  face  by  daylight  see. 
Now,  go  thy  way.  Faintness  constraineth  me 
To  measure  out  my  length  on  this  cold  bed. 
430  By  day's  approach  look  to  be  visited. 

\^Lies  down  and  sleeps^* 

Re-enter  Helena. 
HeL    O  weary  night,  O  long  and  tedious  night. 

Abate  thy  hours!     Shine,  comforts,  from  the  east, 
That  I  may  back  to  Athens  by  daylight. 
From  these  that  my  poor  company  detest : 
435  And  sleep,  that  sometimes  shuts  up  sorrow's  eye. 
Steal  me  awhile  from  mine  own  company. 

]^Lies  down  and]  sleeps. 
Robin.  Yet  but  three?     Come  one  more; 
Two  of  both  kinds  makes  up  four. 
Here  she  comes,  curst  and  sad : 
440  Cupid  is  a  knavish  lad. 

Thus  to  make  poor  females  mad. 

Re-enter  Hermia. 
Her.    Never  so  weary,  never  so  In  woe. 

Bedabbled  with  the  dew  and  torn  with  briers, 
I  can  no  further  crawl,  no  further  go ; 
445         My  legs  can  keep  no  pace  with  my  desires. 
Here  will  I  rest  me  till  the  break  of  day. 
Heavens  shield  Lysander,,  if  they  mean  a  fray! 

[Lies  down  and  sleeps.^ 


104  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM       iii.  ii. 

Puck,  On  the  ground 

Sleep  sound: 

I  '11  apply  450 

To  your  eye, 
Gentle  lover,  remedy. 
[Squeezing  the  juice  on  Lysanders  eyesJ\ 
When  thou  wak'st, 
Thou  tak'st 

True  delight  455 

In  the  sight 
Of  thy  former  lady's  eye : 
And  the  country  proverb  know^n, 
That  every  man  should  take  his  own, 
In  your  waking  shall  be  shown :  460 

Jack  shall  have  Jill  ; 
Nought  shall  go  ill; 
The  man  shall  have  his  mare  again,  and  all  shall  be 
well.  \Exit.1 


ACT  IV. 

[Scene  I.     The  same.     Lysander,   Demetrius, 
Helena,  and  Hermia  lying  asleep, ^^ 

Enter  TiTANiA  and  Clown  [Bottom  ;  Peaseblos- 
SOM,  Cobweb,  Moth,  Mustardseed,]  and 
[other^  Fairies  [attending^  ;  Oberon  behind 
[unseen^, 

Tita.    Come,  sit  thee  down  upon  this  flowery  bed. 

While  I  thy  amiable  cheeks  do  coy. 
And  stick  musk-roses  in  thy  sleek  smooth  head. 

And  kiss  thy  fair  large  ears,  my  gentle  joy. 
5       Bot,    Where  's  Peaseblossom  ? 

Peas.    Ready. 

Bot.     Scratch  my  head,  Peaseblossom.     Where  's 
Mounsieur  Cobweb  ? 

Cob.  Ready. 
10  Bot.  Mounsieur  Cobweb,  good  mounsieur,  get 
you  your  weapons  in  your  hand,  and  kill  me  a 
red-hipp'd  humble-bee  on  the  top  of  a*  thistle ;  and, 
good  mounsieur,  bring  me  the  honey-bag.  Do  not 
fret  yourself  too  much  in  the  action,  mounsieur ;  and, 
15  good  mounsieur,  have  a  care  the  honey-bag  break  not ; 
I  would  be  loath  to  have  you  overflown  with  a  honey- 
bag,  signior.    Where  's  Mounsieur  Mustardseed  ? 


106  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM         iv.  i. 

Mus,    Ready. 

Bot.  Give  me  your  neaf ,  Mounsieur  Mustardseed. 
Pray  you,  leave  your  courtesy,  good  mounsieur.  20 

Mus,    What  's  your  w^ill  ? 

Bot,    Nothing,  good  mounsieur,  but  to  help  Cava- 
lery   Cobw^eb  to  scratch.      I   must   to  the   barber's, 
mounsieur;     for   methlnks    I    am   marvellous    hairy 
about  the  face;    and  I  am  such  a  tender  ass,  If  my   25 
hair  do  but  tickle  me,  I  must  scratch. 

Tita,    What,  w^ilt  thou  hear  some  music,  my  sweet 
love? 

Bot.  I  have  a  reasonable  good  ear  In  music. 
Let's  have  the  tongs  and  the  bones. 

[^Music,     Tongs,    Rural  music, 

Tita,    Or  say,  sweet  love,  what  thou  deslr'st  to  eat.   30 

Bot,  Truly,  a  peck  of  provender :  I  could  munch 
your  good  dry  oats.  Methlnks  I  have  a  great  desire 
to  a  bottle  of  hay.  Good  hay,  sweet  hay,  hath  no 
fellow. 

Tita,     I  have  a  venturous  fairy  that  shall  seek 
The  squirrel's  hoard,  and  fetch  thee  new  nuts.  35 

Bot,  I  had  rather  have  a  handful  or  two  of  dried 
peas.  But,  I  pray  you,  let  none  of  your  people  stir 
me ;  I  have  an  exposition  of  sleep  come  upon  me. 

Tita,  Sleep  thou,  and  I  will  wind  thee  in  my  arms. 
Fairies,  be  gone,  and  be  all  ways  away.  40 

[Exeunt  fairies,^ 
So  doth  the  woodbine  the  sweet  honeysuckle 
Gently  entwist ;  the  female  ivy  so 
Enrings  the  barky  fingers  of  the  elm. 


IV.  i.        A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  107 

O,  how  I  love  thee !  how  I  dote  on  thee ! 

[They  sleep. \ 
Enter  Robin  Goodfellow. 
Obe.     [Advancing.']     Welcome,  good  Robin. 

45  See'st  thou  this  sweet  sight  ? 

Her  dotage  now  I  do  begin  to  pity : 
For,  meeting  her  of  late  behind  the  wood, 
Seeking  sw^eet  favours  for  this  hateful  fool, 
I  did  upbraid  her  and  fall  out  with  her ; 

50  For  she  his  hairy  temples  then  had  rounded 
With  coronet  of  fresh  and  fragrant  flowers ; 
And  that  same  dew,  which  sometime  on  the  buds 
Was  wont  to  swell  like  round  and  orient  pearls, 
Stood  now  within  the  pretty  flowerets'  eyes 

55  Like  tears  that  did  their  own  disgrace  bewail. 
When  I  had  at  my  pleasure  taunted  her 
And  she  in  mild  terms  begg'd  my  patience, 
I  then  did  ask  of  her  her  changeling  child ; 
Which  straight  she  gave  me,  and  her  fairy  sent 

60  To  bear  him  to  my  bower  in  fairy  land. 
And,  now  I  have  the  boy,  I  will  undo 
This  hateful  imperfection  of  her  eyes  ; 
And,,  gentle  Puck,  take  this  transformed  scalp 
From  off  the  head  of  this  Athenian  swain, 

65  That,  he  awaking  when  the  other  do. 
May  all  to  Athens  back  again  repair. 
And  think  no  more  of  this  night's  accidents 
But  as  the  fierce  vexation  of  a  dream. 
But  first  I  will  release  the  fairy  queen. 

[Touching  her  eyes.] 


108  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM         iv.  L 

Be  as  thou  wast  wont  to  be ; 
See  as  thou  wast  wont  to  see : 
DIan's  bud  o'er  Cupid's  flower 
Hath  such  force  and  blessed  power. 
Now,  my  Titania ;  wake  you,  my  sweet  queen. 

Tita.    My  Oberon  !  what  visions  have  I  seen ! 
Methought  I  was  enamour'd  of  an  ass. 
Obe.    There  lies  your  love. 

Tita.  How  came  these  things  to  pass  ? 

O,  how  mine  eyes  do  loathe  his  visage  now ! 

Obe.    Silence  awhile.    Robin,  take  off  this  head. 
Titania,  music  call ;  and  strike  more  dead 
Than  common  sleep  of  all  these  five  the  sense. 

Tita.     Music,  ho!   music,  such  as  charmeth  sleep! 

[Music,  stHL 
Robin.     Now,  when  thou  wak'st,  with  thine  own 

fool's  eyes  peep. 
Obe.     Sound,  music!   Come,  my  queen,  take  hands 
w^ith  me. 
And  rock  the  ground  whereon  these  sleepers  be. 
Now  thou  and  I  are  new  in  amity 
And  will  to-morrow  midnight  solemnly 
Dance  in  Duke  Theseus'  house  triumphantly 
And  bless  it  to  all  fair  prosperity. 
There  shall  the  pairs  of  faithful  lovers  be 
Wedded,  with  Theseus,  all  in  jollity. 
Robin.  Fairy  king,  attend,  and  mark; 

I  do  hear  the  morning  lark. 
Obe.     Then.,  my  queen,  in  silence  sad 
Trip  we  after  the  night's  shade. 


IV.  i.        A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  109 

We  the  globe  can  compass  soon, 
Swifter  than  the  wandering  moon. 
Tita,     Come  my  lord,  and  in  our  flight 
Tell  me  how  it  came  this  night 
100  That  I  sleeping  here  was  found 

With  these  mortals  on  the  ground. 

[Exeunt.    Horns  winded  [withinl. 

Enter  Theseus,  Hippolyta,  Egeus,  and  all  his  train. 

The.    Go,  one  of  you,  find  out  the  forester, 

For  now  our  observation  is  perform'd. 

And  since  we  have  the  vaward  of  the  day, 
105   My  love  shall  hear  the  music  of  my  hounds. 

Uncouple  in  the  western  valley,  let  them  go. 

Despatch,  I  say,  and  find  the  forester. 

[Exit  an  attendant. \ 

We  will,  fair  queen,  up  to  the  mountain's  top 

And  mark  the  musical  confusion 
iio   Of  hounds  and  echo  in  conjunction. 

Hip.    I  was  with  Hercules  and  Cadmus  once, 

When  in  a  wood  of  Crete  they  bay'd  the  bear 

With  hounds  of  Sparta.     Never  did  I  hear 

Such  gallant  chiding;  for,  besides  the  groves, 
.'15  The  skies,  the  fountains,  every  region  near 

Seem'd  all  one  mutual  cry.     I  never  heard 

So  musical  a  discord,  such  sweet  thunder. 

The.    My  hounds  are  bred  out  of  the  Spartan  kind, 

So  flew'd,  so  sanded,  and  their  heads  are  hung 
120  With  ears  that  sweep  away  the  morning  dew  ; 

Crook-knee'd,  and  dew-lapp'd  like  Thessalian  bulls; 


110  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM         iv.  i. 

Slow  in  pursuit,  but  match'd  in  mouth  like  bells, 
Each  under  each.    A  cry  more  tuneable 
Was  never  holla'd  to,  nor  cheer'd  with  horn, 
In  Crete,,  in  Sparta,  nor  in  Thessaly.  125 

Judge  when  you  hear.     But,  soft !   what  nymphs  are 
these  ? 

Ege,     My  lord,  this  is  my  daughter  here  asleep, 
And  this,  Lysander;  this  Demetrius  is; 
This  Helena,  old  Nedar's  Helena. 
I  wonder  of  their  being  here  together.  130 

The.     No  doubt  they  rose  up  early  to  observe 
The  rite  of  May,  and,  hearing  our  intent, 
Came  here  in  grace  of  our  solemnity. 
But  speak,  Egeus ;  is  not  this  the  day 
That  Hermia  should  give  answer  of  her  choice?  135 

Ege.    It  is,  my  lord. 

The.    Go,  bid  the  huntsmen  wake  them  with  their 
horns. 

[Horns  and  shout  within.    Lys.,  Dem., 
Hel.,  and  Her.  wake  and  start  up. 
Good  morrow,  friends.     Saint  Valentine  is  past ; 
Begin  these  wood-birds  but  to  couple  now  ? 

Lys.    Pardon,  my  lord. 

The.  I  pray  you  all,  stand  up.   i40 

I  know  you  two  are  rival  enemies  ; 
How  comes  this  gentle  concord  in  the  world. 
That  hatred  is  so  far  from  jealousy. 
To  sleep  by  hate,  and  fear  no  enmity? 

Lys.    My  lord,  I  shall  reply  amazedly,  14S 

Half  sleep,  half  waking;  but  as  yet,  I  swear, 


IV.  i.        A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  111 

I  cannot  truly  say  how  I  came  here. 

But,  as  I  think, — for  truly  would  I  speak, 

And  now  I  do  bethink  me,  so  ft  is, — 
150    I  came  with  Hermla  hither.     Our  intent 

Was  to  be  gone  from  Athens,  where  we  might, 

Without  the  peril  of  the  Athenian  law — 

Ege,    Enough,  enough,  my  lord  ;  you  have  enough. 
-        I  beg  the  law,  the  law,,  upon  his  head. 
155  They  would  have  stolen  away ;  they  would,  Demetrius, 

Thereby  to  have  defeated  you  and  me,  , 

^        You  of  your  wife,  and  me  of  my  consent. 

Of  my  consent  that  she  should  be  your  wife. 

Dem.     My  lord,  fair  Helen  told  me  of  their  stealth, 
160   Of  this  their  purpose  hither  to  this  wood ; 

And  I  in  fury  hither  followed  them, 

Fair  Helena  in  fancy  following  me. 

But,  my  good  lord,  I  wot  not  by  what  power,— 

But  by  some  power  it  is, — my  love  to  Hermia, 
165   Melted  as  [is]  the  snow,  seems  to  me  now 

As  the  remembrance  of  an  idle  gaud 

Which  in  my  childhood  I  did  dote  upon ; 

And  all  the  faith,,  the  virtue  of  my  heart. 

The  object  and  the  pleasure  of  mine  eyej 
170   Is  only  Helena.    To  her,  my  lard. 

Was  I  betroth'd  ere  I  saw  Hermia; 

But  like  a  sickness  did  I  loathe  this  food ; 

But,  as  in  health,  come  to  my  natural  taste, 

Now  I  do  wish  it,,  love  it,  long  for  it, 
175  And  will  for  evermore  be  true  to  it. 

The.    Fair  lovers,  you  are  fortunately  met*. 


112  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM         iv.  i. 

Of  this  discourse  we  more  will  hear  anon. 
Egeus,  I  will  overbear  5^our  will ; 
For  in  the  temple,  by  and  by,  with  us 
These  couples  shall  eternally  be  knit,  180 

And,  for  the  morning  now  is  something  worn, 
Our  purposed  hunting  shall  be  set  aside. 
Away  with  us  to  Athens ;   three  and  three, 
We  '11  hold  a  feast  in  great  solemnitj^ 
Come,  Hippolyta.  185 

[Exeunt  The.,  Hip.,  Ege.,  and  train. 

Dem.    These  things  seem  small  and  undistinguish- 
able. 
Like  far-oiiF  mountains  turned  into  clouds. 

Her.    Methinks  I  see  these  things  with  parted  eye, 
iVhen  every  thing  seems  double. 

Hel.  So  methinks ; 

And  I  have  found  Demetrius  like  a  jewel,  190 

Mine  own,  and  not  mine  own. 

Dem.    Are  you  sure  that  we  're  awake?    It  seems 
to  me 
That  yet  we  sleep,  we  dream.    Do  not  you  think 
The  Duke  was  here,  and  bid  us  follow  him  ? 

Her.    Yea;  and  my  father. 

Hel  And  Hippolyta.  195 

Lys.    And  he  did  bid  us  follow  to  the  temple. 

Dem.     Why,  then,  we  are  awake.     Let  's  follow 
him; 
And  by  the  way  let  us  recount  our  dreams. 

[Exeunt  lovers. 

Bot.     [A waking. 1     When  my  cue  comes,  call  me, 


^ 


iV.  ii.       A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  m 

200  and  I  will  answer.  My  next  Is,  "Most  fair  Pyramus.*' 
Helgh-ho !  Peter  Quince !  Flute,  the  bellows-mender ! 
Snout,  the  tinker!  Starveling!  God  's  my  life,  stolen 
hence,  and  left  me  asleep !  I  have  had  a  most  rare 
vision.     I  have  had  a  dream,  past  the  wit  of  man  to 

205  say  what  dream  It  was.  Man  Is  but  an  ass.  If  he  go 
about  to  expound  this  dream.  Methought  I  was — 
there  Is  no  man  can  tell  what.  Methought  I  w^as, — 
and  methought  I  had, — but  man  Is  but  apatch'd  fool. 
If  he  will  offer  to  say  what  methought  I  had.     The 

210  eye  of  man  hath  not  heard^  the  ear  of  man  hath  not 
seen,  man's  hand  Is  not  able  to  taste,  his  tongue  to 
conceive,  nor  his  heart  to  report,  what  my  dream 
was.  I  will  get  Peter  Quince  to  write  a  ballad  of 
this    dream.      It   shall    be   called    Bottom's    Dream,  * 

215  because  It  hath  no  bottom;  and  I  will  sing  It  In  the 
latter  end  of  a  play,  before  the  Duke ;  peradventure, 
to  make  It  the  more  gracious,,  I  shall  sing  It  at  her 
death.  [Exit, 


[Scene  II.     Athens,     Quince's  house.^ 

Enter  Quince,  Flute,  Snout,  and  Starveling. 

Quin.     Have  you  sent  to  Bottom's  house?     Is  he 
come  home  yet? 

Star.     He  cannot  be  heard  of.     Out  of  doubt  he  is 
transported. 
5       Flu.    If  he  comes  not,  then  the  play  is  marr'd.    It 
goes  not  forward,  doth  It? 


114  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM       iv.  u. 

Quin.  It  is  not  possible.  You  have  not  a  man  in 
all  Athens  able  to  discharge  Pyramus  but  he. 

Flu.  No,  he  hath  simply  the  best  wit  of  any  handi- 
craft man  in  Athens.  lo 

Snout.  Yea,  and  the  best  person  too;  and  he  is  a 
rery  paramour  for  a  sweet  voice. 

Flu.  You  must  say  ''paragon";  a  paramour  is, 
God  bless  us,  a  thing  of  naught. 

Fnter  Snug. 

Snug.      Masters,,   the   Duke   is  coming   from   the   15 
temple,  and  there  is  tw^o  or  three  lords  and  ladles 
more  married.     If  our  sport  had  gone  forward,  we 
had  all  been  made  men. 

Flu.  O  sweet  bully  Bottom!  Thus  hath  he  lost 
sixpence  a  day  during  his  life;  he  could  not  have  20 
'scaped  sixpence  a  day.  An  the  Duke  had  not  given 
him  sixpence  a  day  for  pla5ang  Pyramus,  I  '11  be 
hang'd.  He  would  have  deserved  it.  Sixpence  a  day 
in  Pyramus,  or  nothing. 

Fnter  BoTTOM. 

Bot.     Where  are  these  lads?     Where  are  these   25 
hearts  ? 

Quin.  Bottom!  O  most  courageous  day!  O  most 
happy  hour ! 

Bot.    Masters,  I  am  to  discourse  wonders,  but  ask 
me  not  what ;  for  if  I  tell  you,  I  am  no  true  Athenian.   30 
I  will  tell  you  everytl^ing,  right  as  it  fell  out. 

Quin.    Let  us  hear,  sweet  Bottom. 


IV.  ii.       A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  115 

Bot.    Not  a  word  of  me.    AH  that  I  will  tell  you 
is,   that  the   Duke   hath   dined.      Get  your   apparel 

35  together,  good  strings  to  your  beards,  new  ribbons  to 
your  pumps ;  meet  presently  at  the  palace ;  every 
man  look  o'er  his  part ;  for  the  short  and  the  long  is, 
our  play  is  preferr'd.  In  any  case,  let  Thisby  have 
clean  linen ;  and  let  not  him  that  plays  the  lion  pare 

40  his  nails,  for  they  shall  hang  out  for  the  lion's  claws. 
And,  most  dear  actors,  eat  no  onions  nor  garlic,  for 
we  are  to  utter  sweet  breath ;  and  I  do  not  doubt  but 
to  hear  them  say,  it  is  a  sweet  comedy.  No  more 
words;  away!  go,  away! 

[Exeunt, 


ACT  V. 

[Scene  I.     Athens,     The  palace  of  Theseus, ~\ 

Enter  Theseus,  Hippolyta,  Philostrate,  Lords 
[and  Attendants^. 

Hip.    'T  is  strange,  my  Theseus,  that  these  lovers 
speak  of. 

The.     More  strange  than  true ;  I  never  may  believe 
These  antique  fables,  nor  these  fairy  toys. 
Lovers  and  madmen  have  such  seething  brains, 
Such  shaping  fantasies,  that  apprehend  5 

More  than  cool  reason  ever  comprehends. 
The  lunatic,  the  lover,  and  the  poet 
Are  of  Imagination  all  compact. 
One  sees  more  devils  than  vast  hell  can  hold ; 
That  Is,  the  madman.    The  lover,  all  as  frantic,  lo 

Sees  Helen's  beauty  In  a  brow  of  Egypt. 
The  poet's  eye,  in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling. 
Doth  glance  from  heaven  to  earth,   from  earth  to 

heaven  ; 
And  as  imagination  bodies  forth 

The  forms  of  things  unknown,  the  poet's  pen  )• 

Turns  them  to  shapes  and  gives  to  airy  nothing 
A  local  habitation  and  a  name. 
Such  tricks  hath  strong  imagination., 

116      . 


A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  117 

That,  If  It  would  but  apprehend  some  joy, 
5fO   It  comprehends  some  bringer  of  that  joy; 

Or  In  the  night,  Imagining  some  fear, 

How  easy  Is  a  bush  suppos'd  a  bear ! 

Hip.    But  all  the  story  of  the  night  told  over> 

And  all  their  minds  transfigured  so  together, 
25   More  witnesseth  than  fancy's  Images, 

And  grows  to  something  of  great  constancy ; 

But,  howsoever,  strange  and  admirable. 

Enter  lovers,  Lysander,  Demetrius,  Hermia,  and 
Helena. 

The.    Here  come  the  lovers,  full  of  joy  and  mirth. 
Joy>  gentle  friends !  joy  and  fresh  days  of  love 
Accompany  your  hearts ! 
30       Lys.  More  than  to  us 

Walt  In  your  royal  walks,  j^our  board,  your  bed ! 
The.     Come  now;    what  masques,  what  dances 
shall  we  have, 
To  wear  away  this  long  age  of  three  hours    ' 
Between  our  after-supper  and  bed-time? 
35  Where  Is  our  usual  manager  of  mirth  ? 
What  revels  are  In  hand  ?    Is  there  no  play 
To  ease  the  anguish  of  a  torturing  hour  ? 
Call  Phllostrate. 

Phil.  Here,  mighty  Theseus. 

The.     Say,  Vv4iat  abridgement  have  you  for  this 
evening? 
40  What  masque  ?  what  music  ?    How  shall  v/e  beguile 
The  lazy  time.  If  not  with  some  delight? 


118  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  v.  i. 

Phil.     There  is  a  brief  how  many  sports  are  ripe. 
Make  choice  of  which  your  Highness  will  see  first. 

[Giving  a  paper J\ 

The,   [Reads,^     *'The  battle  with  the  Centaurs,  to 
be  sung 
By  an  Athenian  eunuch  to  the  harp."  45 

We  '11  none  of  that :  that  have  I  told  my  love, 
In  glory  of  my  kinsman  Hercules. 
"The  riot  of  the  tipsy  Bacchanals, 
Tearing  the  Thracian  singer  in  their  rage," 
That  is  an  old  device ;  and  it  was  play'd  50 

When  I  from  Thebes  came  last  a  conqueror. 
"The  thrice  three  Muses  mourning  for  the  death 
Of  Learning,  late  deceas'd  in  beggary." 
That  is  some  satire,  keen  and  critical. 
Not  sorting  with  a  nuptial  ceremony.  55 

"A  tedious  brief  scene  of  young  Pyramus 
And  his  love  Thisbe;  very  tragical  mirth.'' 
Merry  and  tragical !    Tedious  and  brief ! 
That  is,  hot  ice  and  wondrous  strange  snow. 
How  shall  we  find  the  concord  of  this  discord?  60 

Phil.     A  play  there  is,  my  lord,  some  ten  words 
long, 
Which  is  as  brief  as  I  have  known  a  play ; 
But  by  ten  words,  my  lord,  it  is  too  long, 
Which  makes  it  tedious;  for  in  all  the  play 
There  is  not  one  word  apt,  one  player  fitted.  6^ 

And  tragical,  my  noble  lord,  it  is ; 
For  Pyramus  therein  doth  kill  himself. 
Which,  when  I  saw  rehears'd,,  I  must  confess. 


'       V.  i.         A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  119 

Made  mine  eyes  water ;   but  more  merry  tears 
70  The  passion  of  loud  laughter  never  shed. 
The.    What  are  they  that  do  play  it? 
PhiL    Hard-handed  men  that  work  in  Athens  here, 
Which  never  labour'd  in  their  minds  till  now, 
And  now  have  toiled  their  unbreathed  memories 
75  With  this  same  play,  against  your  nuptial. 
The.    And  we  will  hear  it. 

Phil.  No,  my  noble  lord ; 

It  Is  not  for  you.    I  have  heard  It  over, 
And  It  Is  nothing,  nothing  in  the  world  ; 
Unless  you  can  find  sport  In  their  intents, 
80   Extremely  stretch'd  and  conn'd  with  cruel  pain, 

To  do  you  service. 
:  The.  I  will  hear  that  play ; 

For  never  anything  can  be  amiss. 
When  simpleness  and  duty  tender  It. 
\       Go,  bring  them  In ;  and  take  your  places,  ladies. 
'  [Exit  Philostrate.] 

85       Hip.     I  love  not  to  see  wretchedness  o'ercharged, 
And  duty  in  his  service  perishing. 

The.     Why,  gentle  sweet,  you  shall  see  no  such 

thing. 
Hip.     He  says  they  can  do  nothing  In  this  kind. 
The.     The  kinder  we,  to  give  them  thanks  for 
nothing. 
90  Our  sport  shall  be  to  take  what  they  mistake  ; 
And  what  poor  duty  cannot  do,  noble  respect 
Takes  It  In  might.,  not  merit. 
Where  I  have  come,  great  clerks  have  purposed 


120  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  v.  i 

To  greet  me  with  premeditated  welcomes  ; 

Where  I  have  seen  them  shiver  and  look  pale,  95 

Make  periods  in  the  midst  of  sentences, 

Throttle  their  practis'd  accent  in  their  fears, 

And  in  conclusion  dumbly  have  broke  off, 

Not  paying  me  a  welcome.    Trust  me,  sweet. 

Out  of  this  silence  yet  I  pick'd  a  welcome;  100 

And  in  the  modesty  of  fearful  duty 

I  read  as  much  as  from  the  rattling  tongue 

Of  saucy  and  audacious  eloquence. 

Love,  therefore,  and  tongue-ti'd  simplicity 

In  least  speak  most,  to  my  capacity.  105 

[Re-enter  Philostrate.] 
Phil.  So  please  your  Grace,  the  Prologue  is  addressed. 
The,  Let  him  approach. 

[Flourish  of  trumpets. 

Enter  [Quince  for]  the  Prologue, 
Pro,    If  we  offend,  it  is  with  our  good  will. 

That  you  should  think,  we  come  not  to  offend. 
But  with  good  will.    To  show  our  simple  skill,  110 

That  is  the  true  beginning  of  our  end. 
Consider  then  we  come  but  in  despite. 

We  do  not  come  as  minding  to  content  you. 
Our  true  intent  is.    All  for  your  delight 

We  are  not  here.     That  you  should  here  repent 

you,  115 

The  actors  are  at  hand,  and  by  their  show 
You  shall  know  all  that  you  are  like  to  know. 

The,    This  fellow  doth  not  stand  upon  points. 


V.  i.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  121 

Lys,     He  hath  rid  his  prologue  like  a  rough  colt; 
120  he  knows  not  the  stop.     A  good  moral,  my  lord:   It 
is  not  enough  to  speak,  but  to  speak  true. 

Hip.     Indeed  he  hath  play'd  on  this  prologue  like 
f        a  child  on  a  recorder ;  a  sound,  but  not  In  government. 
The,  His  speech  was  like  a  tangled  chain ;  nothing 
125   impaired,  but  all  disordered.     Who  is  next? 

Enter  with  a  trumpet  before  them,  Pyramus  and 
\     .  Thisbe,  Wall,  Moonshine,  and  Lion. 

s        Fro.     Gentles,  perchance  you  wonder  at  this  show; 
;  But  wonder  on,  till  truth  make  all  things  plain. 

This  man  is  Pyramus,  if  you  would  know ; 
This  beauteous  lady  Thisby  is  certain. 
130  This  man,  with  lime  and  rough-cast,  doth  present 

Wall,  that  vile  Wall  which  did  these  lovers  sunder : 
And    through   Wall's   chink,    poor   souls,    they   are 
content 
To  whisper.    At  the  which  let  no  man  wonder. 
This  man  with  lantern,  dog,  and  bush  of  thorn, 
5        Presenteth  Moonshine ;  for.  If  you  will  know, 
By  moonshine  did  these  lovers  think  no  scorn 

To  meet  at  Ninus'  tomb,  there,  there  to  woo. 
This  grisly  beast,  which  Lion  hight  by  name. 
The  trusty  Thisby,  coming  first  by  night, 
140   Did  scare  away,  or  rather  did  affright; 
And,  as  she  fled,  her  mantle  she  did  fall. 

Which  Lion  vile  with  bloody  mouth  did  stain. 
Anon  comes  Pyramus,  sweet  youth  and  tall. 
And  finds  his  trusty  Thisby 's  mantle  slain ; 


122  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  v.  i. 

Whereat,  with  blade,  with  bloody  blameful  blade,         145 

He  bravely  broach'd  his  boiling  bloody  breast ; 
And  Thisby,  tarrying  in  mulberry  shade. 

His  dagger  drew,  and  died.    For  all  the  rest, 
Let  Lion,  Moonshine,  Wall,  and  lovers  twain 
At  large  discourse,  while  here  they  do  remain.  150 

[Exeunt  Prologue,  Thisbe,  Lion,  and 
Moonshine. 

The.     I  wonder  if  the  lion  be  to  speak. 

De?n.     No  wonder,  my  lord ;  one  lion  may,  when 
many  asses  do. 

Wall.    In  this  same  interlude  it  doth  befall 
That  I,  one  Snout  by  name,  present  a  wall ;  155 

And  such  a  wall,  as  I  would  have  you  think. 
That  had  in  it  a  crannied  hole  or  chink. 
Through  which  the  lovers,  Pyramus  and  Thisby, 
Did  whisper  often  very  secretly. 

This  loam,  this  rough-cast,  and  this  stone  doth  show   160 
That  I  am  that  same  wall ;  the  truth  is  so ; 
And  this  the  cranny  is,  right  and  sinister. 
Through  which  the  fearful  lovers  are  to  whisper. 

The.     Would  you  desire  lime  and  hair  to  speak 
better  ?  i65 

Dem.    It  is  the  wittiest  partition  that  ever  I  heard 
discourse,  my  lord. 

Enter  Pyramus. 

The.     Pyramus  draws  near  the  wall.     Silence! 
Pyr.    O  grim-look'd  night !     O  night  with  hue  so 
black! 


V.  i.         A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  123 

170       O  night,  which  ever  art  when  day  is  not ! 
O  night,  O  night !  alack,  alack,  alack, 

I  fear  my  Thisby's  promise  is  forgot ! 
And  thou,  O  wall,  O  sweet,  O  lovely  wall, 

That  stand'st   between   her   father's   ground   an<5 
mine ! 
175  Thou  wall,  O  wall,  O  sweet  and  lovely  wall. 

Show  me  thy  chink,  to  blink  through  with  mine 
eyne ! 

[PFall  holds  up  his  fingers.^ 
Thanks,  courteous  wall ;  Jove  shield  thee  well  for  this ! 

But  what  see  I  ?    No  Thisby  do  I  see. 
O  wicked  wall,  through  whom  I  see  no  bliss ! 
180        Curs'd  be  thy  stones  for  thus  deceiving  me ! 

I  The.     The  wall,  methlnks,  being  sensible,  should 

curse  again. 
Py7\    No,  in  truth,  sir,  he  should  not.    ^'Deceiving 
me"  Is  Thisby's  cue.     She  Is  to  enter  now,  and  I  am 
185   to  spy  her  through  the  wall.     You  shall  see  it  will 
fall  pat  as  I  told  you.    Yonder  she  comes. 

Enter  Thisbe. 

This,    O  wall,,  full  often  hast  thou  heard  my  moans. 
For  parting  my  fair  Pyramus  and  me ! 

My  cherry  lips  have  often  kiss'd  thy  stones, 
190       Thy  stones  with  lime  and  hair  knit  up  In  thee. 

Pyr.    I  see  a  voice !     Now  will  I  to  the  chink, 
To  spy  an  I  can  hear  my  Thisby's  face. 

ThIsby ! 

This,    My  love  thou  art,  my  love  I  think. 


124  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  v.  i. 

Pyr.     Think  what  thou  wilt,   I   am   thy  lover's 
grace ; 
And,  like  Limander,,  am  I  trusty  still.  195 

This.    And  I  like  Helen,  till  the  Fates  me  kill. 
Pyr.     Not  Shafalus  to  Procrus  was  so  true. 
This.    As  Shafalus  to  Procrus,  I  to  you. 
Pyr.    O,  kiss  me  through  the  hole  of  this  vile  wall ! 
This.    I  kiss  the  wall's  hole,  not  your  lips  at  all.       200 
Pyr.    Wilt  thou  at  Ninny's  tomb  meet  me  straight- 
way? 
This.    'Tide  life, 'tide  death,  I  come  without  delay. 
[Exeunt  Pyramus  and  Thisbe.^ 
Wall.    Thus  have  I,  Wall,  my  part  discharged  so ; 
And,  being  done,  thus  Wall  away  doth  go.        rz?   • 

The.     Now  Is  the  moon  used  between  the  two  20^ 
neighbours. 

Dem.     No  remedy,  my  lord,  when  walls  are  so 
wailful  to  hear  without  warning. 

Hip.    This  Is  the  silliest  stufiF  that  ever  I  heard. 

The.    The  best  in  this  kind  are  but  shadows ;  and   210 
the  worst  are  no  worse,  if  imagination  amend  them. 

Hip.     It  must  be  your  imagination  then,  and  not 
theirs. 

The.     If  we  imagine  no  worse  of  them  than  they 
of  themselves,  they  may  pass  for  excellent  men.   Here   215 
come  two  noble  beasts  In,  a  man  and  a  Hon. 

Enter  LiON  and  Moonshine. 
Lion.    You,  ladies,  you,  whose  gentle  hearts  do  fear 
The  smallest  monstrous  mouse  that  creeps  on  floor, 


V.  i.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  125 

May  now  perchance  both  quake  and  tremble  here, 
220       When  Hon  rough  In  wildest  rage  doth  roar. 
Then  know  that  I,  one  Snug  the  joiner,,  am 
A  lion  fell,  nor  else  no  lion's  dam; 
For,  if  I  should  as  lion  come  in  strife 
Into  this  place,  't  were  pity  on  my  life. 
225        The.     A  very  gentle  beast,  and  of  a  good  con- 
science. 

Dem.    The  very  best  at  a  beast,  my  lord,  that  e'er 
I  saw\ 

Lys,    This  lion  is  a  very  fox  for  his  valour. 
230        The.    True ;  and  a  goose  for  his  discretion. 

Dem.     Not  so,  my  lord ;    for  his  valour  cannot 
carry  his  discretion,  and  the  fox  carries  the  goose. 

The.     His  discretion,  I  am  sure,  cannot  carry  his 
valour ;  for  the  goose  carries  not  the  fox.    It  Is  well ; 
235   leave  it  to  his  discretion,  and  let  us  hearken  to  the 
moon. 

Moon.     This  lantern  doth  the  horned  moon  pre- 
sent ; — 
Dem.    He  should  have  worn  the  horns  on  his  head. 
The.    He  is  no  crescent,  and  his  horns  are  Invisible 
240  within  the  circumference. 

Moon.  This  lantern  doth  the  horned  moon  present ; 
Myself  the  man  I'  the  moon  do  seem  to  be. 

The.     This  is  the  greatest  error  of  all  the  rest. 
The  man  should  be  put  into  the  lantern.     How  Is  It 
24S   else  the  man  I'  the  moon  ? 

Dem.     He  dares  not  come  there  for  the  candle; 
for,  you  see,  it  Is  already  In  snuff. 


126  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  v.  i. 

Hip,    I  am  aweary  of  this  moon.  Would  he  would 
change ! 

The,     It  appears,  by  his  small  light  of  discretion,   250 
that  he  is  in  the  wane;    but  yet,  in  courtesy,  in  all 
reason,,  we  must  stay  the  time. 

Lys.     Proceed,  Moon. 

Moon,    All  that  I  have  to  say,  is,  to  tell  you  that 
the  lantern  is  the  moon;    I,  the  man  i'  the  moon;   255 
this  thorn-bush,  my  thorn-bush;    and  this  dog,  my 
c^og. 

Dem.     Why,  all  these  should  be  in  the  lantern ; 
f^r  all  these  are  in  the  moon.     But,  silence!    here  260 
c^mes  Thisbe. 

Enter  Thisbe, 

This,     This  is  old  Ninny's  tomb.     Where  is  my 
love? 

Lion,     [Roaring. ~\     Oh [Thisbe  runs  off. 

Dem,    Well  roar'd.  Lion. 
The.    Well  run,  Thisbe. 

Hip,    Well  shone,  Moon.  Truly,  the  moon  shines  265 
^'^th  a  good  grace. 

[The  Lion  shakes  Thisbe' s  mantle,  and  exit,~\ 
^he.    Well  mous'd.  Lion. 
Pem,    And  then  came  Pyramus. 
Lys,    And  so  the  lion  vanish'd. 

Enter  Pyramus. 

Pyr.     Sweet  Moon,  I  thank  thee  for  thy  sunny 
beams ;  270 


V.  i.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  12} 

I  thank  thee,  Moon,  for  shining  now  so  bright; 
For,  by  thy  gracious,  golden  glittering  gleams, 
I  trust  to  take  of  truest  Thisby  sight. 

But  stay,  O  spite ! 
275  But  mark,  poor  knight, 

What  dreadful  dole  is  here! 
Eyes,  do  you  see? 
How  can  it  be? 
O  dainty  duck!   O  dear! 
280  Thy  mantle  good. 

What,  stain'd  with  blood! 
Approach,  ye  Furies  fell! 
O  Fates,  come,  come. 
Cut  thread  and  thrum; 
285  Quail,  crush,  conclude,  and  qaell ! 

The.    This  passion,  and  the  death  of  a  dear  friend, 
would  go  near  to  make  a  man  look  sad. 

Hip.     Beshrew  my  heart,  but  I  pity  the  man. 
Pyr.     O  wherefore.  Nature,  didst  thou  lions  frame? 
290        Since  lion  vile  hath  here  deflower'd  my  dear; 
Which  is — no,  no — which  was  the  fairest  dame 
That  liv'd,  that  lov'd,  that  lik'd,  that  look'd  with 
cheer. 

Com.e  tears,  confound ; 
Out,  sword  and  wound 
295  The  pap  of  Pyramus ; 

Ay,  that  left  pap. 
Where  heart  doth  hop. 

[^Stabs  himself. 1 


128  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  v.  i. 

Thus  die  I,  thus,  thus,  thus. 
Now  am  I  dead. 

Now  am  I  fled;  300 

My  soul  is  in  the  sky. 
Tongue,  lose  thy  light; 
Moon,  take  thy  flight. 

[Exit  Moonshine,'} 
Now  die,  die,  die,  die,  die.  [Dies,] 

Dem,     No  die,,  but  an  ace,  for  him;   for  he  is  but   305 
one. 

Lys.  Less  than  an  ace,  man,  for  he  is  dead ;  he  is 
nothing. 

The.  With  the  help  of  a  surgeon  he  might  yet 
recover,  and  yet  prove  an  ass.  310 

Hip.  How  chance  Moonshine  is  gone  before 
Thisbe  comes  back  and  finds  her  lover? 

Re-enter  Thisbe. 

The.  She  will  find  him  by  starlight.  Here  she 
comes ;  and  her  passion  ends  the  play. 

Hip.     Methinks  she  should  not  use  a  long  one  for  315 
such  a  Pyramus.     I  hope  she  will  be  brief. 

Dem.  A  mote  will  turn  the  balance,  which  Pyra« 
mus,  which  Thisbe,  is  the  better ;  he  for  a  man,  God 
warrant  us;  she  for  a  woman,  God  bless  us. 

Lys.    She  hath  spied  him  already  with  those  sweet  320 
eyes. 

Dejn.    And  thus  she  moans,  videlicet: — 

This.        Asleep,  my  love? 

What,  dead,  my  dove? 


V.  i.         A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  129 

325  O  Pyramus,  arise ! 

Speak,  speak!   Quite  dumb? 
Dead,  dead  ?    A  tomb 
Must  cover  thy  sweet  eyes. 
These  lily  lips, 
330  This  cherry  nose, 

These  yellow  cowslip  cheeks, 
Are  gone,  are  gone! 
Lovers,  make  moan. 
His  eyes  w^ere  green  as  leeks. 
335  O  Sisters  Three, 

Come,  come  to  me, 
With  hands  as  pale  as  milk; 
Lay  them  in  gore, 
Since  you  have  shore 
340  With  shears  his  thread  of  silk. 

Tongue,  not  a  word  ! 
Come,  trusty  sword ; 
Come,  blade,  my  breast  imbrue ; 

[Stabs  herself.] 
And,  farewell,  friends; 
345  Thus  Thisby  ends. 

Adieu,  adieu,  adieu.  [Dies.~\ 

The.     Moonshine  and  Lion  are  left  to  bury  the 
dead. 

Dem.    Ay,  and  Wall  too. 
350        [Bot.    Startuig  up.]     No,  I  assure  you;   the  wall 
is  down  that  parted  their  fathers.    Will  it  please  you 
to  see  the  epilogue,  or  to  hear  a  Bergomask  dance 
between  two  of  our  company? 


130  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  v.  i. 

The,  No  epilogue,  I  pray  you;  for  your  play 
needs  no  excuse.  Never  excuse ;  for  when  the  players 
are  all  dead,  there  need  none  to  be  blamed.  Marry,  If 
he  that  writ  it  had  played  Pyramus  and  hang'd  himself 
In  Thisbe's  garter,  it  would  have  been  a  fine  tragedy ; 
and  so  it  is,  truly ;  and  very  notably  discharg'd.  But 
come,  your  Bergomask;  let  your  epilogue  alone. 

^     [A  dance.^ 
The  Iron  tongue  of  midnight  hath  told  twelve. 
Lovers,  to  bed ;  't  is  almost  fairy  time. 
I  fear  we  shall  out-sleep  the  coming  morn 
As  much  as  we  this  night  have  overwatch'd. 
This  palpable-gross  play  hath  well  beguil'd 
The  heavy  gait  of  night.    Sweet  friends,  to  bed. 
A  fortnight  hold  we  this  solemnity 
In  nightly  revels  and  new  jollity.  [Exeunt. 

Enter  RoBIN   GoODFELLOW, 

Robin,    Now  the  hungry  lion  roars. 

And  the  wolf  behowls  the  moon; 
Whilst  the  heavy  ploughman  snores, 

All  with  weary  task  fordone. 
Now  the  wasted  brands  do  glow, 

Whilst  the  screech-owl^  screeching  loud, 
Puts  the  wretch  that  lies  in  woe 

In  remembrance  of  a  shroud. 
Now  It  is  the  time  of  night 

That  the  graves,  all  gaping  wide, 
Every  one  lets  forth  his  sprite, 

In  the  church-way  paths  to  glide. 


V.  I         A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  131 

And  we  fairies,  that  do  run 
By  the  triple  Hecate's  team 

From  the  presence  of  the  sun 

Following  darkness  like  a  dream, 
385  Now  are  frolic.    Not  a  mouse 

Shall  disturb  this  hallowed  house. 

I  am  sent  with  broom  before, 

To  sweep  the  dust  behind  the  door. 

Enter  Oberon  and  Titania  with  their  train. 

Obe,       Through  the  house  give  glimmering  light 
390  By  the  dead  and  drowsy  fire, 

Every  elf  and  fairy  sprite 

Hop  as  light  as  bird  from  brier; 

And  this  ditty,  after  me. 

Sing,  and  dance  it  trippingly. 
395    Tita,       First,  rehearse  your  song  by  rote, 

To  each  word  a  warbling  note. 

Hand  in  hand,  with  fairy  grace. 

Will  we  sing,  and  bless  this  place. 

[Son^  [and  dance^ 
Obe-        Now,  until  the  break  of  day, 
400  Through  this  house  each  fairy  stray. 

To  the  best  bride-bed  will  we, 

Which  by  us  shall  blessed  be; 

And  the  issue  there  create 

Ever  shall  be  fortunate. 
405  So  shall  all  the  couples  three 

Ever  true  in  loving  bt^ ; 

And  the  blots  of  Nature's  hand 


132  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  v.  i. 

Shall  not  in  their  issue  stand ; 
Never  mole,  hare-lip,  nor  scar, 
Nor  mark  prodigious,  such  as  are  4io 

Despised  in  nativity, 
Shall  upon  their  children  be. 
With  this  field-dew  consecrate, 
Every  fairy  take  his  gait. 

And  each  several  chamber  bless,  4i5 

Through  this  palace,  v^ith  sweet  peace; 
And  the  owner  of  it  blest 
Ever  shall  in  safety  rest. 
Trip  away ;  make  no  stay  ; 

Meet  me  all  by  break  of  day.  420 

[Exeunt  [Oberon,  Titania,  and  train~\. 
Robin,    If  we  shadows  have  offended, 

Think  but  this,  and  all  is  mended, 

That  you  have  but  slumb'red  here 

While  these  visions  did  appear. 

And  this  weak  and  idle  theme,  425 

No  more  yielding  but  a  dream, 

Gentles,  do  not  reprehend. 

If  you  pardon,  we  will  mend. 

And,  as  I  am  an  honest  Puck, 

If  we  have  unearned  luck  430 

Now  to  'scape  the  serpent's  tongue, 

We  will  make  amends  ere  long; 

Else  the  Puck  a  liar  call. 

So,  good  night  unto  you  all. 

Give  me  your  hands,  if  we  be  friends,  435 

And  Robin  shall  restore  amends.        {Exit.l 


NOTES 


ABBREVIATIONS 

A.— Arden  Edition,  by  E.  K.  Chambers.   (D.  C.  Heath   &  Co.) 
B. —  Edition  by  G.  P.  Baker.  (Longman's  English  Classics.) 
C — Edition  by  Henry  Cunningham.    (Dowden  Shakespeare.) 
G. — Globe  Edition    of   Shakspere.      References    to    other    plays   of 
Shakspere's  than  Midsummer -Night's    Dream    are    according    to    the 
line  numbering  of  this  edition  and  that  by  W.  A.  Neilson  in  "The 
Cambridge  Poets." 

R.— Edition  by  W.  J.  Rolfe.      (American  Book  Co.) 
Var. — Variorum  Edition,  by  H.  H.  Furness. 
Gr. — Abbott's  Shakesperian  Grammar. 
S. — Schmidt's  Shakespeare-Lexicon. 


ACT  I. 

I.  i.  In  this  scene,  which  is  mainly  exposition,  the  first  nineteen 
lines  afford  a  setting  for  the  play  by  preparing  for  the  central  incident 
around  which  the  other  events  group  themselves,  the  wedding  of 
Theseus  and  Hippolyta.  The  remainder  of  the  scene  indicates  the 
nature  of  the  complications  that  are  to  follow,  by  its  rehearsal  of  the 
difficulties  of  the  two  pairs  of  lovers.  Matters  are  brought  rapidly 
to  a  head  by  the  command  of  Theseus  that  Hermia  must  wed  Demetrius 
or  suffer  the  penalty  for  disobedience.  The  action  is  started  by  the 
determination  of  Hermia  and  Lysander  to  flee,  and  of  Helena  to  inform 
Demetrius,  which  leads  all  four  to  the  wood  where  the  comedy  of 
"errors"  is  played. 

I.  i.  4.     Lingers.     Delays;  used  transitively. 

I.  i.  5.  Dowager.  A  widow  who  has  during  her  lifetime  a  claim  on 
part  of  the  heir's  estate,  and  who  thus,  during  the  period  in  which  she 
is  withering  away,  delays  the  heir  from  entering  into  full  possession  of 
his  revenue. 

I.  i.  11.  Philostrate.  Pronounced  as  a  trisyllable,  as  are  Theseus 
and  Egeus  through  the  play. 

I.  i.  13.      Pert.     Livelv 

I.  i.  15.  Companion.  Otten  used  by  Shakspere  in  the  contempt- 
uous way  that  we  sometimes  use  "fellow." 

5  133 


134  NOTES 

I.  i.  20.     Duke.     Shakspere   perhaps    took   this  anachronistic  title 
from  Chaucer's  Knight's  Tale,  which  begins  as  follows: 
"Whilom,  as  olde  stories  tellen  us, 
Ther  was  a  duk  that  highte  Theseus; 
Of  Athenes  he  was  lord  and  governour, 
And  in  his  tyme  swich  a  conquerour, 
That  gretter  was  ther  non  under  the  sonne. 
Ful  many  a  riche  contre  hadde  he  wonne; 
That  with  his  wisdom  and  his  ctij-^'o'"'"^ 
He  conquered  al  the  regne  of  Fem>..^ 
That  whilom  was  i-cleped  Cithea; 
And  weddede  the  queen  IpoHta, 
And  brought  hire  hoom  with  him  in  his  contr6 
With  moche  glorie  and  gret  solempnite." 
This  passage  also  explains  the  allusion  in  II.  15-17. 
I.  i.  27.    For  meter,  cf.  Introd.,  p.  39,2.    For  the  charge  of  witchcraft 
cf.     Othello,  I.  iii.  60  fif. 

I.  i.  31.     Paining.      "Loving,  longing,  yearning;    love-sick"     (Var.) 
Many  editors  emend  to  feigning. 

I.  i.  32.  Stolen.  .  .fantasy.  Stealthily  impressed  thyself  on  her  fancy. 
I.  i.   33.     Gawds.     Baubles,   trifling  ornaments.     Conceits.     Fanci- 
ful devices. 

I.  i.  35.     Prevailment.    Influence.     Unhard'ned.     Impressionable,  like 
soft  wax. 

I.  i.  36.     Filch' d.     Stolen. 

I.  i.  45.     Immediately.     Especially,  expressly. 

I.  i.  54.     In  this  kind.     In  this  present  respect  of  marriage.      Voice 
Approval. 

I.  i.  68.      Blood.     Passion,  impulse. 
I.  i.  69.     Whether.     Cf.  Introd.,  p.  39,  2. 
I.  i.  71.     Mew'd.     Confined. 

I.  i.  73.     Moon.     I.  e.  Diana,  the  moon-goddess. 
I.  i.  74-5.     For  the  significance  of    these  lines    as  bearing  on  the 
presence  of   Queen  Elizabeth  at   the   performance  of  the    play,  cf 
Introd.,  p.  38. 

I.  i.  76.     Earthlier  happy.      Happier  on  earth,  or  from  a  worldly 
point  of  view. 

I.  i.  80.      Virgin  patent.     My  privilege  as  an  unmarried  woman. 
I.  i.  81.     Unwished  yoke.     For  omission  of  preposition  to  see  Introd., 
p.  44,  6,  a. 

I.  i.     89.    Protest.     Vow. 
I.  i.     92.    Crazed.     Feeble,  not  valid. 
I.  i.     98.   Estate  unto.     Settle  upon. 
I.  i.     99.   Deriv'd.     Born,  descended. 
I.  i.   100.    Well  possess' d.     Rich. 


NOTES  135 

I.  i.  110.   Spotted.     Stained  with  guilt,  unfaithful. 

I.  i.  118.   Fancies.     Love. 

I.  i.  120.   Extenuate.     Weaken,  make  lighter. 

I.  i.  125.    Against.     In  preparation  for.  Cf.  Introd.,  p.  44,  6.  c 

I.  i.  129.   How  chance?     How  does  it  chance  that? 

I.  i.  130.    Belike.     Probably. 

I.  i.  131.    Beteem  them.     Allow  them,  bestow  upon  them. 

I.  i.  135.    Blood.     Rank,  birth. 

I.  i.  136.  O  cross!  etc.  What  misfortune  that  one  well-born  should 
be  slavishly  in  love  with  a  person  of  lower  rank! 

I.  i.  137.     Misgraffed.      Badly  grafted  or  united. 

I.  i.  143.  Momentany.  "Momentary"  is  Shakspere's  usual  form, 
but  this  form  is  found  occasionally  in  other  writers  of  the  period. 

I.  i.   145.     Collied.      Blackened,  as  with  coal.      Cf.  collier,  colliery. 

I.  i.  146.     Spleen.     Sudden  impulse  of  emotion,  flash  of  passion. 

I.  i.  149, 151,  152.  For  pronunciation  of  confusion,  edict,  and  patience, 
cf.  Introd.,  p.  41. 

I.  i.  152.  Let  us  teach  our  trial  patience.  Let  us  teach  ourselves 
patience  in  enduring  our  trial. 

I.  i.  154.     Due.     Appropriate. 

I.  i.  155.     Fancy's.     Love's. 

I.  i.  158.  Revenue.  Accent  on  the  second  syllable.  This  pronun- 
ciation is  still  used  in  the  British  Parliament. 

I.  i.  159.  Leagues.  A  Wague  was  usually  considered  the  equivalent 
of  three  miles.  But  cf.  1. 165  below,  and  I.  ii.  98,  where  it  is  apparently 
regarded  as  a  mile. 

I.  i.  160.     Respects.     Regards. 

I.  i.  164.  Steal  forth  thy  father's  house.  See  Introd.,  p.  44,  6,  a,  for 
omission  oi  from. 

I.  i.  167.  For  an  excellent  description  of  English  May-day  observ- 
ances read  Brandt's  Popular  Antiquities,  vol.  i,  pp.  212-34. 

I.  i.  170.  Golden  head.  Cupid  had  two  kinds  of  arrows,  one  tipped 
with  gold,  the  other  with  lead.  For  their  opposite  effects  cf.  Golding's 
translation  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  I.  466  ff: 

"Therefrom  his  quiver  full  of  shafts  two  arrows  he  did  take 
Of  sundry  powers;  tone  causes  Love,  the  tother  doth  it  slake. 
That  causeth  love  is  all  of  golde,  with  point  full  sharpe  and  bright. 
That  chaseth  love  is  blunt,  whose  Steele  with  leaden  head  is  dight." 

I.  i.   171.     Simplicity.     Innocence. 

I.  i.  172.  This  vague  allusion  is  often  explained  as  referring  to  the 
cestus  or  girdle  of  Venus,  which  aroused  love  for  the  wearer.  But 
that  may  simply  mean  "all." 

I.  i.  173-4.  A  reference  to  the  desertion  of  Dido,  queen  of  Carthage 
by  the  Trojan  Aeneas.     See  Virgil's  Aeneid. 


136  NOTES 

I.  i.  182.     Fair.     Fairness,  beauty.     Shakspere  frequently  uses  the 
adjective  for  the  substantive;  cf.  Comedy  of  Errors,  II.  i.  98: 
"My  decayed  fair 
A  sunny  look  of  his  would  soon  repair." 

Also  Venus  and  Adonis  1083,  1086,  and  cf.  Introd.,  p.  42,  3,  b. 

I.  i.  183.  Lode-stars.  Guiding-stars;  like  the  North  Star,  by  vi^hich 
sailors  guide  their  course.  "Here  Helena  seems  to  mean,  not  only  that 
Hermia's  eyes  are  'guiding  stars, '  but  also  that  they  have  the  irresistible 
power  of  attraction  which  lode  (cf.  'lode-stone')  suggests."  [B.] 

I.  i.  186.     Favour.     Personal  appearance. 

I.  i.  190.      Bated.  Excepted. 

I.  i.  191.      Translated.     Transformed. 

I.  i.  209.     Phoebe.     Another  name  for  Diana,  the  moon. 

I.  i.  212.     Still.     Ever. 

I.  i.  215.     Faint.     Pale. 

I.  i.  219.     Stranger  companies.     Strange  companions. 

I.  i.  231.  So  I  .  .  .  qualities.  So  do  I  err  in  admiring  his  qualities. 
See  Introd.,  p.  44,  6,  b. 

I.  i.  232.  Holding  no  quantity.  "Bearing  no  proportion  to  what 
they  are  estimated  at  by  love."  [S.] 

I.  i.  242.  Eyne.  The  old  plural  form  of  eye;  also  written  eyen.  Cf. 
other  plurals  in  -en  like  oxen,  children. 

I.  i.  249.  Dear  expense.  It  will  be  a  very  costly  proceeding  for  me 
to  earn  thanks  by  telling  my  love  where  he  may  find  my  rival. 

I.  ii.  Scene  two  introduces  the  low-comedy  of  the  play,  and  connects 
the  actors  in  it  with  the  main  thread  of  the  story  through  their  purpose 
to  entertain  Theseus  on  his  wedding  day.  It  also  promises  to  bring 
them  into  contact  with  the  group  of  lovers,  since  Quince  gives  orders 
to  meet  in  the  same  wood  whither  Lysander  and  Hermia  propose  to 
flee.  The  kind  of  humor  furnished  by  Bottom's  contorted  vocabulary 
has  been  frequently  used  as  a  comic  device  by  Shakspere  and  other 
English  dramatists;  perhaps  the  best  known  example  of  the  type, 
outside  of  Shakspere,  is  Mrs.  Malaprop  in  Sheridan's  Rivals.  Cf.  Dog- 
berry in  Much  Ado  about  Nothing. 

I.  ii.  2.  You  were  best.  It  were  best  for  you.  ^om,  which  is  really 
a  dative,  had,  by  Shakspere's  time,  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  nomina- 
tive; cf.  "  I  were  better,"  2  Henry  IV.,  I.  ii.  245  ;  "  I  were  best  net 
call,"  Cymbeline,  III.  vi.  19.  Generally.  BottoAi's  equivalent  for 
"individually." 

I.  ii.  3.     Scrip.     Script,  written  list. 

I.  ii.  6.  Interlude.  This  name,  originally  applied  to  the  slight 
d'-amatic  pieces  played  between  courses  of  a  banquet  or  as  part  of  a 
long  entertainment,  came  later  to  be  used  of  any  of  the  less  dignified 
types  of  dramatic  performam  e. 


NOTES  137 


T.  ii.  10.  Grow  to  a  point.  Come  to  the  point,  "get  down  to  business," 
as  we  say. 

I.  ii.  11.  Marry.  By  (the  Virgin)  Mary,  a  common  oath.  The 
title  pages  of  plays  published  in  Shakspere's  early  days  often  bore 
such  conflicting  titles:  e.  g.  A  Lamentable  Tragedie,  mixed  full  of 
pleasant  Mirth,  containing  The  Life  of  Camhises,  King  of  Percia;  and 
A  New  Tragicall  Comedie  of  A  pi  us  and  Virginia  (1575). 
I.  ii.  23.     Gallant.     See  Introd.,  p.  43,  5,  b. 

I.  ii.  27.     Condole.    Lament.    Cf.  Henry  V.,  II.  i.    133,  where  Pistol 
says,  "Let  us  condole  the  Knight." 
I.  ii.  28.      Humour.     Taste. 

I.  ii.  29.  Ercles.  The  part  of  Hercules,  like  that  of  Herod,  gave  the 
actor  who  played  it  opportunity  to  indulge  in  much  violent  action,  and 
deliver  himself  of  a  great  deal  of  rant  and  bombast.  Thus  in  Greene's 
Groatsworth  of  Wit  (1592)  a  player  says,  "The  twelve  labours  of  Hercules 
have  I  terribly  thundered  on  the  stage."  The  theatrical  manager 
Henslowe  records  in  his  diary  the  performance  in  May,  1595,  of  the 
two  parts  of  a  play  of  Hercules,  and  these  may  be  identical  with  Thomas 
Heywood's  Silver  Age  and  Brazen  Age  (pub.  1613),  in  which  Hercules 
plays  a  prominent  and  very  rhetorical  part. 

I.  ii.  30.  A  part  to  tear  a  cat  in.  It  has  been  suggested  that  this  may 
be  intended  as  a  burlesque  on  the  killing  of  a  lion  by  Hercules,  but 
it  was  a  proverbial  expression;  cf.  Day's  Isle  of  Gulls  (1606),  "I  had 
rather  hear  two  such  jests,  than  a  whole  play  of  such  Tear-cat  thunder- 
claps;" Histviomastix  (1610),  "Sirrah,  this  is  you  would  rend  and  tear 
the  cat  Upon  a  stage;"  The  Roaring  Girl  (1611),  "I  am  called,  by 
those  who  have  seen  my  valour.  Tear-cat." 

To  make  all  spJ-'t.  A  common  phrase,  originally  nautical,  used  of 
persons  accustomed  to  "tear  a  passion  to  tatters,  to  very  rags,  to  split 
the  ears  of  the  groundlings,"  {Hamlet,  III.  ii.  10  ff.).  Rolfe  suggests 
that  the  lines  following  may  be  a  burlesque  on  the  opening  lines  of 
Hercules  Furens,  translated  from  the  Latin  of  Seneca,  in  1581,  and 
quotes: 

"O  Lorde  of  Ghostes!  whose  fyrye  flashe 
That  forth  thy  hande  doth  shake. 
Doth  cause  the  trembling  lodges  twayne. 

Of  Phoebus'  carre  to  shake. 
Raygne  reachlesse  nowe;  in  every  place 

Thy  peace  procurde  I  have, 
Aloffe  where  Nereus  lookes  up  lande, 
Empalde  in  winding  wave." 
Also 

"The  roring  rocks  have  quaking  sturd, 
And  none  therat  hath  pusht; 
Hell  gloummy  gates  I  have  brast  oape, 

Where  grisly  ghosts  all  husht 
Have  stood     .     ,     •     " 


138  NOTES 

I.  ii.  49.  Play  it  in  a  mask.  See  Introd.,  p.  26,  on  the  Elizabethan 
theatre.  If  there  were  not  boys  enough  to  fill  all  the  feminine  roles 
the  adults  who  played  the  parts  performed  in  masks. 

I.  ii.  51.     An.     If. 

I.  ii.  52.  Thisne.  "It  may  be  questioned  whether  the  true  reading 
is  not  thisne,  thisne;  that  is,  'in  this  manner,' a  meaning  which  'thissen' 
has  in  several  dialects."  [Cambridge  Ed.]  Most  critics  have  considered 
this  Bottom's  attempt  to  pronounce  the  lady's  name  in  a  "monstrous 
little  voice." 

I.  ii.  70.      That.     So  that,  as  often. 

I.  ii.  80.  Aggravate.  Mrs,  Quickly  makes  the  same  mistake  of 
using  this  word  when  she  means  precisely  the  opposite  in  2  Henry  I F., 
II.  iv.  175,  "I  beseek  you  now,  aggravate  your  choler." 

I.  ii.  81.      You.     Ethical  dative;  see  Introd.,  p.  42,  2,  c. 

I.  ii.  82.     An  'twere.     As  if  it  were. 

I.  ii.  84.      Proper.     Handsome. 

I.  ii.  90.     To  dye  the  beard  was  a  custom  of  Shakspere's  time. 

I.  ii.  91.  Purple-in-grain.  Some  shade  of  red;  Judas  in  the  old 
Mystery  plays  wore  a  red  beard. 

I  ii.  92.  French-crown-colour.  The  color  of  the  French  coin  called 
a  crown,  i.  e.  pale  yellow.  Quince,  in  replying,  puns  on  the  other  mean- 
ing of  crown  =  head. 

I.  ii.  105.  Obscenely.  Perhaps  Bottom  means  "obscurely";  another 
suggestion  is  "seemly";  yet  another,  "unseen." 

I.  ii.  108.  Hold  or  cut  bow-strings.  A  doubtful  phrase,  the  general 
meaning  of  which  seems  to  be  "whatever  happens."  Bottom  echoes 
Quince  :  "  Yes,  let  us  meet  at  the  Duke's  oak  no  matter  what  may 
come  up." 


ACT  II. 

II.  i.  We  have  hitherto  met  two  of  the  groups  of  characters  con- 
cerned in  the  action  of  the  play;  the  third  group,  from  whose  interfer- 
ence in  the  affairs  of  the  mortals  most  of  the  complications  arise,  now 
make  their  appearance.  The  fairy  kingdom  is  not  essentially  unlike 
realms  more  mundane,  and  of  the  internal  dissensions  that  disturb  it 
we  learn  in  the  first  part  of  the  scene,  while  in  the  last  partOberon 
proposes  to  punish  his  rebellious  queen  and  to  restore  peace  among 
the  lovers  by  means  of  his  magic  plant.  The  scene  is  remarkable  for 
the  large  amount  of  very  beautiful  descriptive  poetry,  which  advances 
the  action  scarcely  at  all,  but  is  highly  acceptable  for  its  own  sake. 

II.  i.  S.  D.  The  one  door  and  another  of  the  stage  direction  refer,  of 
course,  to  actual  stage  arrangements,  rather  than  to  the  imaginary 
"wood  near  Athens." 


NOTES  139 

II.  i.  2.  C.  quotes  Coleridge  on  the  meter  used  by  the  fairy  as 
"invented  and  employed  by  Shakespeare  for  the  sake  of  its  appropri- 
ateness to  the  rapid  and  airy  motion  of  the  fairy  by  whom  the  speech 
is  delivered." 

II.  i.  7.     Sphere.    According  to  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  astronomy, 
still  in  vogue  when  Shakspere  wrote,  the  moon  and  all  the  other  heavenly 
bodies  were  fixed  in  concentric  hollow  crystalline  spheres  that  rotated 
around  the  earth,  which  was  supposed  to  be  fixed  at  the  center  of  this 
series  of  spheres.     Hence  the    motion    of    sun,    moon,    planets    and 
fixed  stars  was  due  to  the  rotation  of  the  spheres  in  which  they  were 
embedded.     This  motion  was  also  responsible  for  the  "music  of  the 
spheres"  of  which  Lorenzo  speaks  in  Merchant  of  Venice,  V.  i.  60-2: 
"There's  not  the  smallest  orb  which  thou  behold'st 
But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings. 
Still  quiring  to  the  young-ey'd  cherubins." 

II.  i.  9.  Orbs.  Tho  rings  of  darker  grass  sometimes  seen  in  a  pasture, 
called  "fairy  rings,"  and  believed  by  the  peasantry  to  be  made  by 
the  feet  of  dancing  fairies. 

II.  i.  10.  Tall.  That  the  cowslips  are  tall  to  the  fairies  shows  how 
small  the  fairies  are.  Yet  they  must  have  been  represented  on  the 
stage  by  children.  Pensioners.  Queen  Elizabeth  kept  a  bodyguard 
called  the  Gentlemen  Pensioners,  made  up  of  fifty  tall  and  handsome 
young  men  of  good  birth,  who  were  gorgeously  attired. 

II.  i.  11.     Spots.     Cf.  Cymbeline,  II.  ii.  38: 

"A  mole  cinque-spotted  like  the  crimson  drops 
I'  the  bottom  of  a  cowslip." 

II.  i.  16.  Lob.  Clown,  lout;  the  word  is  allied  to  "lubber,"  and  has 
a  suggestion  of  awkwardness. 

II.  i.  20.      Wrath.     See  Introd.,  p.  42,  1,  b. 

II.  i.  23.  Changeling.  The  fairies  were  supposed  to  steal  beautiful 
children  and  leave  in  exchange  ugly  elves;  here,  however,  the  word  is 
applied  to  a  child  thus  carried  away. 

II.  i.  25.     Trace.     Roam. 

II.  i.  29.     Sheen.     Shining,  bright. 

II.  i.'  30.     Square.      Quarrel. 

II.  i.  33.     Shrewd.      Mischievous,  wicked. 

II.  i.  34.  Robin  Goodfellow.  The  class  of  household  spirits  repre- 
sented by  Robin  Goodfellow  is,  of  course,  quite  distinct  from  dainty 
beings  like  Titania's  elves. 

II.  i.  35.      Villager y.     Village  folk,  peasantry. 

II.  i.  36.  Skim.  The  change  of  construction  from  the  third  person 
singular  of  "frights"  is  caused  by  a  change  of  thought  from  the  gram- 
matical antecedent  "he"  to  the  logical  antecedent  "you."  Quern.  A 
hand-mill  for  grinding  corn. 

II.  i.  38.     Barm.     Properly  yeast,  but  here  used  rather  of  the  froth 


140  NOTES 

from  which  the  yeast  was  made.     The  drink  failed  to  ferment  properly, 
to  come  to  a  head  and  show  froth. 

II.  i.  39.     Mislead     .     .     .     hari::.     I.  e.  the  will-o'-the-wisp. 

II.  i.  40.  Puck.  Not  strictly  a  proper  name,  but  the  name  of  a 
class  of  spirits,  a  synonym  for  devil  or  fiend;  cf.  V.  i.  429. 

II.  i.  48.  Crab.  Crab-apple;  these  were  roasted  in  the  fire  and 
formed  one  of  the  ingredients  of  a  hot,  spiced  drink. 

II.  i.  51.  Aunt.  Used  generically  for  "old  woman."  Saddest. 
Soberest,   most  serious. 

II,  i.  54.  "Tailor"  cries.  The  best  explanation  of  the  epithet  is 
that  offered  by  HaUiwell,  who  says  it  is  equivalent  to  "thief,"  and 
quotes  from  PasquiVs  Night-Cap  (1612) : 

"Theeving  is  now  an  occupation  made. 
Though  men  the  name  of  tailor  doe  it  give." 

fl.  i.  55.     Quire.     Choir,  company. 

II.  i.  56.      Waxen.     Wax,  increase.      Neeze.     Sneeze. 

II.  i.  66,  68.  Cor  in,  Phillida.  Conventional  names  in  pastoral 
poetry  for  a  shepherd  and  shepherdess. 

II.  i.  67.     Corn.     Shepherds'  pipes  were  made  of  oaten  straw. 

11.  i.  70.  Bouncing.  The  word  has  a  scornful  signification  coming 
from  the  lips  of  dainty  Titania. 

II.  i.  71.  Buskin'd.  The  buskin  was  the  Latin  cothurnus,  a  high 
boot  used  by  warriors,  hunters,  and  tragic  actors. 

II.  i.  75.     Glance  at.       Hint  at,  indirectly  attack. 

II.  i.  78-80.  Perigenia,  Aegle,  Ariadne,  Antiopa.  Shakspere  took 
these  names  of  the  loves  of  Theseus  from  North's  translation  of  Plu- 
tarch's Life  of  Theseus. 

I.  i.  82.      Middle  summer's  spring.     The  beginning  of  midsummer. 

II.  1.  84.      Paved.     With  pebbly  bottom. 

II.  i.  85.     M argent.     A  poetical  form  of  margin. 

II.  i.  86.      Ringlets.     Fairy  rings,  like  the  orbs  of  I.  9. 

II.  i.  88-117.  For  an  account  of  the  attempts  to  date  the  play  from 
this  passage  see  Introd.,  p.  33. 

II.  i.  90.  Contagious.  Fogs  were  popularly  supposed  to  carry 
Infection  and  pestilence. 

II.  i.  92.     Overborne  their  continents.     Overflowed  their  banks. 

II.  i.  95.      His.      Its.     See  Introd.,  p.  42,  2,  a. 

II.  i.  97.     Murrain.     Plague-stricken. 

II.  i.  98.  Nine  men's  morris.  A  game  somewhat  resembling 
draughts,  sometimes  played  on  the  turf  by  rustics. 

II.  i.  99.  Quaint  mazes.  Labyrinths  marked  out  on  the  grass,  and 
kept  trodden  down  by  the  boys  at  their  sports.  There  was  long  such 
a  maze  near  Winchester  School.  Wanton.  Playful;  a  case  of  metonymy, 
for  the  adjective  is  transferred  from  the  playing  bo>^  to  the  place  wheie 
they  carry  on  their  sport. 


NOTES  141 

II    i.  104.     Washes.     Wets,  makes  damp. 

II.  i.  105.  Rheumatic  diseases.  These  included  colds,  catarrhs, 
etc.,  in  addition  to  what  we  now  call  rheumatism. 

II.  i.  106.  Distemper ature.  Disturbance  of  the  natural  order  of 
things.  It  has  been  taken,  however,  as  referring  to  the  quarrel  between 
Oberon  and  Titania. 

II.    i.    109.      Hiems.     Winter.      Thin.     Thinly   covered. 

II.  i.  112.     Childing.     Fruitful.      Cf.  Sonnet  97: 

"The  teeming  autumn,  big  with  rich  increase." 

II.  i.  113.      Wonted.     Accustomed. 

II.  i.  114.     Increase.     The  products  natural  to  each  season. 

II.  i.  117.     Original.     Source. 

TI.  i.  121.      Henchman.     Here,   page. 

II.  i.  146.  Thou  shall  not  from  this  grove.  For  omission  of  verb  of 
motion  see  Introd.,  p.  43,  4,  c. 

II.  i.  158.      By.     Practically  equivalent  to  "in."     Cf.  Gr.  145. 

II.  i.  164.     Fancy-free.     Untouched  by  love. 

II.  i.  168.  Love-in-idleness.  A  name  sometimes  applied  to  the 
pansy. 

II.  i.  148-169.  These  lines  constitute  one  of  the  most  discussed 
passages  in  Shakspere,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  dramatist  has  been 
suspected  of  allegorical  intent.  It  has  been  universally  agreed  from 
the  time  of  Shakspere's  first  editor,  Rowe,  that  the  poet  here  pays  a 
courtly  compliment  to  the  Queen.  "The  fair  vestal  throned  by  the 
west"  is  undoubtedly  Elizabeth,  queen  of  England,  an  island  of  the 
west.  Cupid's  unsuccessful  attempt  on  the  heart  of  the  imperial 
votaress  is,  of  course,  an  allusion  to  the  Queen's  unmarried  condition 
and  oft-proclaimed  regard  for  chastity.  Warburton  tried  to  show  that 
by  the  mermaid  was  figured  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots.  The  most  elaborate 
theorizing,  however,  was  done  by  the  Rev.  N.  J.  Halpin  [Oberon's 
Vision.  Shaks.  Soc.  Publ.  1843),  who  argued  that  the  passage  is  to 
a  certain  extent  descriptive  of  the  entertainment  given  by  the  Earl  of 
Leicester  for  the  Queen  at  Kenilworth  Castle  in  1575,  that  Cupid  was 
Leicester,  and  the  little  Western  flower  was  Lettice,  Countess  of  Essex, 
with  whom  Leicester  was  then  intriguing  and  whom  he  afterward 
married.  Halpin's  view  has  failed  of  general  acceptance,  for  it  seems 
clear  that  the  little  western  flower  is  a  real  flower,  and  that  the  passage 
was  written  mainly  to  emphasize  its  importance  and  to  prepare  for  the 
prominent  part  it  plays.  For  a  full  discussion  of  the  arguments  pro 
and  con  see  Var.  For  the  bearing  of  the  allusion  to  Elizabeth  on  the 
occasion  of  the  play,  see  Introd.,  p.  2>^. 

II.  i.  176.  Forty.  Generally  used  in  Shakspere's  time  to  indicate 
an  indefinite  number;  cf,  our  expression  "forty  winks." 

II,  i.  186.  I  am  invisible.  Oberon  adds  this  for  the  benefit  of  the 
audience  to  explain  why  he  remains  unnoticed  by  the  mortals.     Hens' 


142  NOTES 

lowe,  in  his  diary,  lists  among  his  properties  "a  robe  for  to  go  invisibell,** 
and  perhaps  Oberon  wore  some  such  distinctive  attire  to  indicate  his 
invisibility, 

11.  i.  190.  Stay  .  .  .  stayeth.  •"!  will  arrest  Lysander,  and 
disappoint  his  scheme  of  carrying  off  Hermia;  for  'tis  upon  the  account 
of  this  latter  that  I  am  wasting  away  the  night  in  this  wood."  [Heath, 
quot.  by  Var.]     Some  editors  read  "slay     .     .     .     slayeth." 

11.  i.  192.  Wood  within  this  wood.  The  first  word  of  the  pun  is  the 
Anglo-Saxon  "wod,"  meaning  mad,  or  furiously  angry. 

II.  i.  195.  Adamant.  Used  with  some  confusion  both  for  the  dia- 
mond, or  other  substance  of  extreme  hardness,  and  for  the  lodestone 
or  magnet. 

II.  i.  196.  But  yet  .  .  .  as  steel.  Many  editors  emend  for  to 
though.  Furness  explains  by  making  draw  not  —  repel.  Perhaps 
the  passage  may  be  paraphrased  thus:  "Yet  you  draw  not  iron,  for 
my  heart  has  only  the  trueness  of  steel,  not  its  hardness." 

II.  i.  201.    Nvr  I  cannot.   For  double  negative  see  Introd.,  p.  43,  5,  a. 

II.  i.  208.     Worser.     For  double  comparative  see  Introd.,  p.  42,  3,  a. 

II.  i.  214.     Impeach.     Expose  to  reproach. 

II.  i.  220.     Privilege.     Protection.     For  thai.     Since,  because. 

II.  i.  224.      Respect.     Opinion,  estimation. 

II.  i.  231.  The  story  of  Apollo's  pursuit  of  Daphne  and  her  trans- 
formation into  a  laurel  tree  is  told  by  Ovid  in  the  first  book  of  the 
Metamorphoses. 

II.  i.  232.  Griffin.  A  fabulous  animal  with  the  body  of  a  lion  and 
head  of  an  eagle.      Hind.     Female  deer. 

II.  i.  240.      Your  wrongs.     The  wrongs  you  do  me. 

II.  i.  244.     See  Introd.,  p.  43,  4,  f.,  for  grammatical  construction. 

II.  i.  250.     Oxlips.     A  kind  of  cowslips. 

II.  i.  251.  Woodbine.  Usually,  honeysuckle,  but  used  of  other 
climbing  shrubs. 

II.  i.  252.     Eglantine.     Sweet-briar. 

II.  i.  255.     Throws.     Casts  off. 

II.  i.  256.     Weed.     Garment.  Cf.  "widow's  weeds." 

II.  ii.  With  the  dropping  of  the  juice  in  the  eyes  of  Titania  and 
Lysander  and  the  startlingly  sudden  abandonment  by  the  latter  of 
Hermia  for  Helena,  the  complication  is  fairly  under  way.  The  spec- 
tacular element  prevails  in  the  first  part  of  the  scene, 

II.  ii.  1.      Roundel.     The  same  as  round,  II.  i.  140. 

II.  ii.  2.  Third  part  of  a  minute.  Note  the  ingenious  way  in  which 
Shakspere  calls  attention  to  the  diminutiveness  of  the  fairies  by  pro- 
portioning their  conceptions  of  time  to  their  size. 

II.  ii.     3.     Cankers.     Canker-worms. 

II.  ii.     4.     Rere-mice.     Bats. 

II.  ii.     7.     Quaint.     Fine,  dainty. 


NOTES  143 

II.  ii,     8.     Offices.     Duties. 

II.  ii.     9.     Double.     Forked. 

II.  ii.  11.  Newts  and  blind-worms.  These  harmless  creatures  were 
formerly  considered  poisonous. 

II.  ii.  13.  Philomel.  The  nightingale;  the  story  of  Philomela  is 
told  in  Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  bk.  vi. 

II.  ii.  30.     Ounce.     A  kind  of  panther.     Cat.     Wild-cat. 

II.  ii.  31.     Pard.     Leopard. 

II.  ii.  36.  Troth.  Truth;  in  11.  42  and  50  below  it  m*eans  pledge  of 
love. 

II.  ii.  45.  Take  the  sense  .  .  .  of  my  innocence.  "Understand  my 
innocent  meaning."  [Johnson.] 

II.  ii.  46.  Love  .  .  .  conference.  When  lovers  talk  together 
their  love  enables  each  to  get  the  other's  true  meaning. 

II.  ii.  54.     Beshrew.     A  playful  curse. 

II.  ii.  68.     Approve.     Prove,  test. 

II.  ii.  79.     Owe.     Own,  possess. 

II.  ii.  86.  Darkling.  In  the  dark.  Cf.  King  Lear,  I.  iv.  237:  "So 
out  went  the  candle,  and  we  were  left  darkling," 

II.  ii.  88.     Fond.     Foolish. 

II.  ii.  89.     Lesser.     Cf.  worser,  II.  i.  208. 

II.  ii.  99.     Sphery.     Star-like.     For  eyne,  cf.  I.  i.  242,  note. 

II.  ii.  103.  The  surprising  suddenness  of  Lysander's  declaration  of 
love  for  Helena  is  accentuated  by  the  rhyme,  the  way  in  which  he  caps 
the  couplet  begun  by  her. 

II.  ii.  118.      Ripe.     A  verb. 

II.  ii.  119.  Touching  .  .  .  skill.  Reaching  the  highest  point 
of  human  discernment. 

II.  ii.  121.     Overlook.     Look  over,  peruse. 

II.  ii.  132.     Gentleness.     Nobility,  courtesy. 

II.  ii.  149.     Eat.     A  past  tense,  a  parallel  form  with  ate. 

II.  ii.  154.     Of  all  loves.     For  love's  sake;  the  of  ol  adjuration. 


ACT  IIL 

III.  i.  The  last  scene  of  Act  II.  brought  the  fairies  into  contact 
with  the  group  of  lovers;  here,  with  the  transformation  of  Bottom  and 
the  affection  lavished  on  him  by  the  enamoured  queen,  the  fairies  are 
entangled  with  the  group  of  artisans.  The  contrast  between  asinine 
Bottom  and  delicate  Titania  is  in  the  most  exquisite  spirit  of  comedy. 

III.  i.  2.     Pat,  pat.     Exactly,  at  the  time  and    place  agreed  upon. 

III.  i.  4.      Tiring-house.     Dressing  room,  at-tiring  room. 

III.  i.  8.  Bully.  "A  term  of  endearment  and  familiarity,  originally 
applied  to  either  sex;  sweetheart,  darling.     Later,  to  men  only,  imply 


144  NOTES 

ing  friendly  admiration;  good  friend,  fine  fellow,  'gallant.'  "  [New  Eng. 
Diet.]  Cf.  Henry  V.,  IV.  i.  48,  "I  love  the  lovely  bully";  Merry  Wives, 
II.  iii.  18,  "bully  doctor." 

III.  i.  13.  By'r  lakin.  By  our  lady-kin,  or  little  lady;  like  "marry," 
an  oath  by  the  Virgin.  Parlous.  A  corruption  of  "perilous,"  often 
used  merely  as  an  intensive, 

III.  i.  20.  More  better.  For  the  double  comparative,  cf.  Introd., 
p.  42,  3,  a. 

III.  i.  24.  I*n  eight  and  six.  I.  e.  in  lines  of  eight  and  six  syllables 
alternately. 

III.  i.  32.  Your.  Not  used  possessively,  but  in  a  colloquial  way 
like  the  Latin  iste;  that  lion  you  know  about.  Cf.  I.  ii.  90,  "your  straw- 
colour  beard,  etc." 

III.  i.  42.      Pity  of  my  life.     A  sad  thing  for  me. 

III.  i.  45.  Tell  them  plainly.  Malone  suggested  that  a  hint  for 
this  might  have  come  from  one  of  the  anecdotes  in  a  collection  of  jests 
{Mss.  Harl.  6395) :  "There  was  a  spectacle  presented  to  Queen  Elizabeth 
on  the  water,  and  among  others,  Harry  Goldingham  was  to  represent 
Arion  upon  the  dolphin's  back;  but  finding  his  voice  to  be  very  hoarse 
and  unpleasant,  when  he  came  to  perform  it,  he  tears  off  his  disguise 
and  swears  he  was  none  of  Arion,  not  he,  but  e'en  honest  Harry  Gold- 
ingham, which  blunt  discovery  pleased  the  Queen  better  than  if  it  had 
gone  through  in  the  right  way;  yet  he  could  order  his  voice  to  an  instru- 
ment exceedingly  well."     Cf.  Scott's  use -of  this  incident  in  Kenilworth. 

III.  i.  56.  Great  chamber  window,  where  we  play.  I.  e.  the  window 
of  the  great  hall  of  Theseus's  palace.  It  was  a  very  common  thing  for 
the  theatrical  companies  of  Shakspere's  time  to  give  performances  in 
the  homes  of  noblemen,  using  the  great  main  hall  for  the  purpose. 

III.  i.  58.  Bush  of  thorns.  "The  man  in  the  moon  was  popularly 
represented  with  a  bundle  of  thorns  and  a  dog.  He  was  variously 
explained  as  being  either  Isaac  carrying  the  wood  for  his  own  sacrifice, 
or  Cain  sacrificing  thorns  as  the  produce  of  his  land,  or  the  man  in 
Numbers,  xv.  32,  who  was  stoned  for  gathering  sticks  on  the  Sabbath- 
day."   [C] 

III.  i.  79.     Toward.     Preparing. 

.TII.  i.  94.  Brisky  juvenal.  Brisk  youth;  the  affected  vocabulary 
of  the  old  plays  is  effectively  burlesqued  in  this  bit  of  the  proposed  play 
as  rehearsed,  which,  it  will  be  noted,  differs  from  that  finally  presented. 
Eke.     Also. 

III.  i.  102.     //  /  were.     I.  e.  if  I  were  as  true  as  truest  horse. 

III.  i.  105.  Lead  you  about  a  round.  Cf.  our  expression,  "to  lead  one 
a  dance." 

III.  i.  110.  Each  of  the  substantives  refers  back  to  the  verb  in  the 
corresponding  position  in  the  preceding  line. 

III.  i.  115.     An  ass-head  of  your  own.     "Do  you  see  a  reflection  of 


NOTES  145 

your  own  noddle?"  [B.]  Bottom  is  here,  as  later,  perfectly  unconscious 
of  his  transformation;  hence,  his  constant  use  of  the  word  "ass"  has 
high  comic  irony. 

III.  i.  118.      Translated.     Cf.  I.  i.  191. 

III.  i.  124,     Ousel  cock.     Male  blackbird. 

III.  i.  126.      Throstle.     Thrush. 

III.  i.  127.     Quill.     Singing  voice. 

III.  i.  130.  Plain-song.  The  simple  melody  in  any  musical  com- 
position, without  variations.  The  word  here  probably  refers  to  the 
rather  monotonous  note  of  the  cuckoo. 

III.  i.  131-2.  The  name  of  the  bird  suggested  cuckold,  the  word 
applied  by  the  Elizabethans  to  a  man  whose  wife  was  unfaithful,  and 
the  bird's  note  was  supposed  to  convey  a  warning.  Cf.  Love's  Labour's 
Lost,  V.  ii.  908  ff: 

"The  cuckoo  then  on  every  tree 
Mocks  married  men;  for  thus  sings  be, 

'Cuckoo; 
Cuckoo,  cuckoo,' — O  word  of  fear  » 

Unpleasing  to  a  married  ear!" 

III.  i.  139.     Force  perforce.     A  strong  way  of  saying  "necessarily." 

III.  i.  145.     Gleek.     Scoff. 

III.  i.  151.     Whether.     Monosyllabic.  Cf.  Introd.,  p.  39,  2. 

III.  i.  164.     Apricocks.     An  earlier  and  more  correct  spelling. 

III.  i.  168.  Eyes.  By  poetic  license  the  phosphorescent  glow  is 
transferred  from  the  insect's  tail  to  its  eyes. 

III.  i.  169.      Have.     Attend. 

III.  i.  177.     Cry  your  mercy.      Beg  your  pardon. 

III.  i.  181.  If  .  .  .  you.  Cobweb  was  often  used  to  stop  the 
flow  of  blood  from  an  injury. 

III.  i.  184.     Squash.     An  unripe  peascod. 

III.  i.  191.     Ox-beef.     Alluding  to  the  use  of  mustard  with  beef. 

III.  i.  197.      Watery  eye.     Dew  was  supposed  to  fall  from  the  moon. 

III.  i.  199.     Enforced.     Violated. 

III.  ii.  This  scene  sees  the  complications  in  the  story  of  the  lovers 
at  their  height,  while  with  the  squeezing  of  the  juice  into  Lysander's 
eyes  comes  the  first  step  in  the  solution.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  there  is 
but  little  distinctive  characterization  of  the  lovers;  Helena  and  Hermia, 
Demetrius  and  Lysander  are  almost  identical. 

III.  ii.  3.     In  extremity.     Excessively. 

III.  ii.  5.  Night-rule.  Sometimes  glossed  as  "night-revel,"  but 
apparently  meaning  no  more  than  conduct,  order  of  things,  during  the 
night. 

III.  ii.  7.     Close.     Secret. 

III.  ii.  9.  Patches.  Clowns,  rustics.  Mechanicals.  Mechanics, 
artisans. 


146  NOTES 

III.  ii.  10.     Stalls.     Open  shops,  like  those  in  a  public  market. 

III.  ii.  13.      Barren  sort.     Witless  crew. 

III.  ii.  17.      Nole.     Noddle,  head. 

III.  ii.  18.     Anon.     Immediately. 

III.  ii.  21.  Russet-pated  choughs.  Grey-headed  jackdaws.  SorU 
Company. 

III.  ii.  36.     Latch'd.     Caught,  ensnared,  charmed. 

III.  ii.  44.     Breath.     Speech. 

III.  ii.  48.     Cf.  Macbeth,  III.  iv.  136: 

"I   am  in  blood 
Stepp'd  in  so  far  that,  should  I  wade  no  more, 
Returning  were  as  tedious  as  go  o'er." 

III.  ii.  55.  Her  brother's.  Apollo,  the  sun  god,  and  Diana,  the  moon 
goddess,  were  brother  and  sisten 

III.  ii.  70.      Touch.     Feat. 

III.  ii.  74.     On  a  mispris'd  mood.     In  mistaken  temper. 

III.  ii.  84-87.  Sleep  is  in  debt  to  sorrow,  for  it  is  in  duty  bound  to 
come  and  give  sorrow  relief.  But  sleep  is  bankrupt,  and  its  failure  to 
relieve  sorrow  makes  sorrow's  burden  heavier.  However,  if  I  wait  a 
bit  for  sleep  to  make  an  offer,  it  may  pay  some  portion  of  the  debt. 

III.  ii.   90.     Misprision.     Mistake. 

III.  ii.  92.      Holding  troth.      Keeping  faith. 

III.  ii.  93.     Confounding.      Breaking. 

III.  ii.  96.     Fancy-sick.     Love-sick.     Cf.  I.  i.  155. 

III.  ii.  97.  With  sighs  .  .  .  dear.  It  was  an  old  superstition 
that  for  every  sigh  a  drop  of  blood  was  lost. 

III.  ii.  99.  Against.  In  anticipation  of  the  time  when  she  will 
appear. 

III.  ii.  103.      Hit     .     .     .     archery.     Cf.  II.  i.  165  ff. 

III.  ii.  113.     Fee.     Reward,  privilege. 

III.  ii.  114.     Fond  pageant.     Silly  spectacle. 

III.  ii.  119.     Alone.     Unequalled. 

III.  ii.  124.  So  born.  Being  so  born;  an  absolute  construction,  for 
which  see  Gr.  376,  377,  417.     For  alternate  rhyme,  cf.  Introd.,  p.  38. 

III.  ii.  128.     Advance.     Show. 

III.  ii.  133.      Tales.      Empty  stories. 

III.  ii.  153.     Superpraise  my  parts.     Overpraise  my  qualities. 

III.  ii.  157.     Trim.     Fine. 

III.  ii.  159.     Sort.     Quality,  kind. 

III.  ii.  175.     Aby.     Pay  for. 

III.  ii.  188.     Oes  and  eyes.     A  punning  allusion  to  the  stars. 

III.  ii.  203.      Artificial  gods.     Artist-gods. 

III.  ii.  213.  Two  of  the  first.  A  term  of  heraldry,  explained  by 
Douce  as  referring  to  "the  double  coats  in  heraldry  that  belong  to  man 
and  wife  as  one  person,  but  which  have  but  one  crest." 


NOTES  i47 

III.  ii.  214.     Due.     Belonging. 

III.  ii.  237.     Persever.     The  regular  Shaksperian  spelling  and  accent 

III.  ii,  242.     Argument.     Subject  for  sport. 

III.  ii.  257.  Ethiope.  Alluding,  like  tawny  Tartar  in  1.  263,  to 
Hermia's  brunette  complexion.  The  reply  of  Demetrius,  which, 
owing  to  differences  in  reading  between  the  Folio  and  Quartos,  has 
given  rise  to  much  discussion,  is  practically  equivalent  to  a  charge  of 
cowardice  on  Lysander's  part.  He  implies  that  Lysander's  delay  in 
answering  his  challenge,  really  occasioned  by  the  way  in  which  Hermia 
is  clinging  to  Lysander,  is  assumed  as  an  excuse  for  not  fighting. 

III.  ii.  259.      Tame.     Cowardly. 

III.  ii.  268.  Weak  bond.  I.  e.  Hermia's  arms.  There  is,  of  course, 
a  pun  on  the  two  senses  of  bond. 

III.  ii.  282.  Canker -blossom.  Usually  a  wild  rose,  but  here  a  canker- 
worm  that  eats  blossoms. 

III.  ii.  288.     Puppet.     Doll. 

III.  ii.  296.  Painted  maypole.  Maypoles,  in  addition  to  being 
adorned  with  streamers  and  flowers,  were  sometimes  painted.  Painted 
probably  refers  to  Helena's  blonde  complexion. 

III.  ii.  300.     Curst.     Shrewish,  spiteful. 

III.  ii.  302.     Right.     True.     For.     As  regards. 

III.  ii.  310.     Stealth.     Stealthy  flight. 

III.  ii.  317.     Fond.     Foolish. 

III.  ii.  323.     Shrewd.     Same  as  curst,  1.  300. 

III.  ii.  329.  Minimus.  The  Latin  superlative,  substituted  for  the 
English  ' ' minim. ' '  Knot-grass.  A  weed  which  was  popularly  supposed 
to  stunt  the  growth  of  children. 

HI.  ii.  335.     Aby.     Cf.  1.  175. 

III.  ii.  338.     Jowl.     Jaw.     Cheek  by  jowl.     Close  alongside. 

III.  ii.  339.     Coil.     Strife.      'Long  of  you.     On  your  account. 

III.  ii.  345.     Still.     Always. 

III.  ii.  356.      Welkin.     Heavens. 

III.  ii.  357.     Acheron.     A  river  in  hell. 

III.  ii.  367.      Virtuous  property.     Powerful  and  efficacious  quality. 

III.  ii.  368.      His.     See  Introd.,  p.  42,  2,  a. 

III.  ii.  371.     Fruitless.     Without  results,  consequences. 

III.  ii.  373.     Date.     Duration. 

III.  ii.  380.  Aurora's  harbinger:  The  morning-star,  which  announces 
the  approach  of  dawn.  A  harbinger  was  a  person  who  rode  in 
advance  to  procure  lodgings. 

III.  ii.  383.  Crossways  and  floods.  "Suicides,  whose  bodies  were 
either  never  recovered  from  the  water,  or  else  buried  in  crossways 
without  religious  rites,  were  looked  upon  as  especially  doomed  to  wan- 
der." [A.] 

III.  ii.  389.     Morning's  love.     This  is  probably  Aurora  herself,  but 


us  NOTES 

is  sometimes  taken  as  referring  to  her  husband  Tithonus  or  her  lovei 
Cephalus. 

III.  ii.  402.     Drawn.     With  drawn  sword. 

III.  ii.  412.  We'll  try  no  manhood  here.  We  will  not  make  trial  of 
our  courage,  i.  e.  fight,  here. 

III.  ii.  421.  Ho,  ho,  hoi  The  devil  in  the  old  miracle  and  morality 
plays  usually  came  on  the  stage  with  this  laugh,  and  it  was  used  by 
Robin  Goodfellow  in  the  anecdotes  and  ballads  that  described  his 
pranks. 

III.  ii.  461.  Jack  shall  have  Jill.  In  John  Heywood's  Epigrams, 
1567,  is  found  "All  shall  be  well.  Jack  shall  have  Jill,"  and  the  two 
names  were  frequently  used  generically. 

III.  ii.  463.     The  man     ,     ,     .     well.     Another  old  proverb. 

ACT  IV. 

IV.  i.  Two  of  the  three  groups  of  actors,  the  lovers  and  the  fairies, 
are  here  freed  from  the  difficulties  in  which  they  have  been  entangled. 
The  opening  situation  between  Titania  and  Bottom  is  a  continuation 
of  that  in  III.  i.     With  1.  107  the  scene  reverts  to  III.  ii. 

IV.  i.  2.     Amiable.     Lovely.     Coy.     Caress. 

IV,  i.  16.     Overflown.     Overflowed,  drenched. 

IV.  i.  19.      Neaf.     Fist. 

IV.  i.  20.     Leave  your  courtesy.     Don't  bother  about  ceremony. 

IV.  i.  22.  Cavalery  Cobweb.  Bottom's  pronunciation  of  Cavalero. 
Cobweb  has  already  been  assigned  another  task,  and  the  name  ought 
properly  to  be  Peaseblossom.  Either  it  is  a  slip  on  Shakspere's  part, 
or  else  Bottom  is  temporarily  confused  as  to  his  attendant's  names. 

IV.  i.  29.  The  tongs  and  the  bones.  The  former  were  struck  by  an 
iron  key,  giving  an  effect  like  that  of  the  modern  triangle;  the  latter 
resembled  those  used  by  present  day  negro  minstrels. 

IV.  i.  3Z.  Bottle.  "The  diminutive  of  the  French  botte,  a  bundle,  of 
hay,  flax,  etc."  [C] 

IV.  i.  35.      Hoard  is  dissyllabic,     Cf.  Introd.,  p.  41.' 

IV.  i.  38.     Exposition.     I.  e.  disposition, 

IV.  i.  41.  Woodbine  .  .  .  honeysuckle.  A  good  deal  of  diffi- 
culty has  been  caused  by  the  fact  that  these  two  words,  here  apparently 
used  to  distinguish  two  different  plants,  are  elsewhere  used  by  Shakspere 
as  synonymous.  Probably  in  this  instance,  however,  "woodbine"  may 
be  taken  as  =  convolvulus.     Cf.  II,  i.  251. 

IV,  i.  42,  Female.  Because  the  ivy  is  dependent  upon  the  elm  as  a 
wife  on  her  husband. 

IV.  i.  46.     Dotage.     Doting  affection. 

IV.  i.  48.     Favours.     Lx)ve-tokens,  presents. 

IV.  i.  53.     Orient.     Bright,  rich. 


NOTES  149 

IV.  i.  65.     Other.     A  plural. 

IV.  i.  72.  Dian's  hud.  The  herb  of  II.  i.  184  and  III.  ii.  366  ;  as 
Cupid's  flower  is  the  "love-in-idleness"  of  II.  i.  168. 

IV.  i.  82.     S.  D.     Music,  still.     Soft  music. 

IV.  i.  94.     Sad.     Grave,  cf.  II.  i.  51. 

IV.  i.  103.  Observation.  Ceremony,  "observance  to  a  morn  of  May," 
I.  i.  167. 

IV.  i.  104.      V award.     First  part;  literally,  the  vanguard  of  an  army. 

IV.  i.   106.      Uncouple.     Unleash  ;  hounds  were  leashed,  in  couples. 

IV.  i.  113.  Hounds  of  Sparta.  Celebrated  for  their  swiftness  and 
keenness  of  scent. 

IV.  i.  114.     Chiding.     Any  loud  sound;  here  specifically,  bayiag. 

IV.  i.  124.  Flew'd.  With  large  hanging  chaps.  Sanded.  Sandy 
in  color. 

IV.  i.  123.  Each  under  each.  Of  different  notes,  like  bells  in  a 
chime.  Very  great  care  was  paid  in  Elizabethan  times  to  the  musical 
quality  of  a  pack's  cry.  Cf.  Addison's  description  of  Sir  Roger's  pack 
in  the  De  Coverley  Papers. 

IV.  i.  133.     Grace.     Honor. 

IV.  i.  138.  Saint  Valentine.  It  was  supposed  that  birds  began  to 
mate  on  this  day. 

IV.  i.  144.      To.     As  to. 

IV.  i.  152.  Lysander  is  interrupted  by  Egeus  before  finishing  what 
he  was  saying. 

Cf.  III.  ii.  310,  note. 
Cf.  I.  i.  155. 
Cf.  I.  i.  33. 
Power. 
jewel.     The  usual  interpretation  is  that    Helena 
compares  her  recovery  of  Demetrius  to  a  person's  finding  a   jewel   and 
remaining  in  uncertainty  whether  it  is  to  be  a  permanent  possession  or 
whether  it  will  be  claimed  by  the  owner. 

IV.  i.  199.  Bottom's  train  of  thought  is  taken  up  precisely  where  it 
left  off  at  III.  i.  86,  when  he  made  his  exit  as  Pyramus  before  returning 
with  the  ass's  head  upon  his  shoulders,  but  he  thinks  that  he  has  been 
napping  and  indulging  in  most  remarkable  dreams. 

IV.  i.  202.  God's  my  life.  "Shortened  form  of  the  oath,  'By  God 
who  is  my  life,'  or,  'As  God  is  my  life.'  "  [B.] 

IV.  i.  205.      Go  about.     Undertake. 

IV.  i.  208.  Patch'd.  The  Elizabethan  fool  or  jester  was  dressed  in 
motley  garments,  made  up  of  patches  of  various  colors. 

IV.  i.  209-13.  The  eye  .  .  .  dream  was.  Doubtless  a  parody  of 
/.  Corinthians,  ii.  9:  "Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither  have 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for 
them  that  love  him." 


IV.  1 

.159. 

Stealth. 

IV. 

I.  162. 

Fancy. 

IV. 

I.  166. 

Gaud. 

IV. 

i.  168. 

Virtue. 

IV. 

I.  190. 

Like  a 

150  NOTES 

IV.  L  217.  Gracious.  Acceptable.  At  her  death.  The  pronoun 
seems  to  refer  to  Thisbe.  By  many  editors  the  passage  is  emended  to 
read  "alter  death,"  i.  e.  after  Bottom's  death  as  Pyramus,  he  will  come 
to  life  again  to  sing  the  ballad  of  his  dream. 


IV.  ii.  With  the  reunion  of  Bottom  and  the  other  artisans  and  their 
assurance  that  they  are  to  present  their  play,  the  last  group  of  characters 
are  freed  from  their  difficulties,  and  the  plot  is  practically  finished. 

IV.  ii.  4.  Transported.  Transformed.  Starveling's  equivalent  for 
the  translated  of  Quince,  III.  i.  118,  and  of  Puck,  III.  ii.  32. 

IV.  ii.  6.     Goes  not  forward.     Will  not  proceed. 

IV.  ii.  8.     Discharge.     Act. 

IV.  ii.  14.      A  thing  of  naught.     A  loose  woman. 

IV.  ii.  20.  Sixpence  a  day.  Thomas  Preston  had  the  good  fortune 
to  please  Queen  Elizabeth  by  his  acting  in  a  play  in  1564,  and  was  given 
a  pension  of  twenty  pounds  a  year,  at  the  rate  of  rather  more  than  a 
shilling  per  day. 

IV.  ii.  27.  Courageous.  Used  with  no  particular  meaning,  but 
simply  for  the  effect  of  its  length. 

IV.  ii.  33.     Of     From. 

IV.  ii.  35.     Strings.     With  which  to  tie  on  the  false  beards. 

IV.  ii.  38.  Preferr'd.  Proffered,  offered  for  approval.  It  has  been 
admitted  to  the  list  of  entertainments  from  which  Theseus  is  to  choose. 


ACT  V. 

V.  i.  The  real  story  of  the  play  is  now  over,  and  the  last  act  merely 
provides  a  comic  ending,  somewhat  in  the  nature  of  an  epilogue,  and 
closes  with  the  epithalamium,  or  marriage  song,  which  probably  had 
additional  point  from  the  occasion  of  the  play.     Cf.  Introd.,  p.  38. 

V.  i.  5.     Shaping  fantasies.     Creative  imaginations. 

V.  i.  8.     Compact.     Composed. 

V.  i.  11.     Brow  of  Egypt.     I.  e.  a  swarthy  complexion. 

V.  i.  19-20.  That,  if  .  .  .  joy.  That  if  it  merely  conceives  the 
idea  of  some  pleasurable  object,  it  immediately  conceives  some  method 
of  attaining  that  object. 

V.  i.  21.     Fear.     Fearful  object. 

V.  i.  26.     Constancy.     Consistency. 

V.  i.  34.  After-supper.  Sometimes  called  "rere-supper;"  there  ia 
ditference  of  opinion  whether  it  means  a  second  supper,  served  some 


NOTES  151 

time  later  than  the  regular  meal,  or  merely  the  dessert  or  last  course  of 
a  supper.     Here  the  latter  meaning  would  seem  preferable. 

V.  i.  35.  Manager  of  mirth.  All  court  entertainments  were  in 
charge  of  a  Master  of  the  Revels,  who  was  a  personage  of  considerable 
importance. 

V.  i.  39.  Abridgement.  Something  to  make  time  seem  shorter,  a 
pastime. 

V.  i.  42.     Brief.     List.     Ripe.     Ready. 

V.  i.  44.  Battle  with  the  Centaurs.  Between  the  Centaurs  and 
Lapithae.     Cf.     Ovid,  Met.  XII. 

V.  i.  49.      Thracian  singer.     Orpheus.     Cf.     Ovid,  Met.   XI. 

V.  i.  52.  The  thrice  three  Muses.  The  attempts  to  find  an  allusion 
here  to  some  recently  deceased  poet  are  not  convincing,  nor  does  any 
topical  reference  seem  to  be  necessarily  implied. 

V.  i.  55.     Sorting.     Agreeing,  fitting. 

V.  i.  59.  Wondrous.  For  pronunciation,  cf.  Introd.,  p.  40,  2. 
Strange.     Unnatural,   prodigious. 

V.  i.  74.     Unhreathed.     Unpractised. 

V.  i.  79-81.  Unless  you  .  .  .  service.  "Unless  you  can  find 
entertainment  in  their  endeavors,  which  they  have  stretched  to  the 
utmost  in  studying  with  cruel  pain  the  lines  of  the  play,  for  the 
purpose  of  serving  you."  [B.] 

V.  i.  85.     Overcharged.     Overladen. 

V.  i.  86.      His.     See  Introd.,  p.  42,  2,  a. 

V.  i.  88.     In  this  kind.     At  this  sort  of  business,  /.  e.  acting. 

V.  i.  90,  To  take  what  they  mistake.  To  accept  in  good  part  what 
they  offer  blunderingly. 

V.  i.  91-2.  Noble  respect  takes  it  in  might,  not  merit.  True  nobility 
or  courtesy,  looking  on,  takes  the  will  for  the  deed;  "accommodates  its 
judgment  to  the  abilities  of  the  performers,  not  to  the  merit  of  the 
performance."  [S.] 

V.  i.  93.     Clerks.     Scholars,  men  of  learning. 

V.  i.  96.     Make  periods.     Come  to  a  stop. 

V.  i.  101.     Fearful.     Awe-struck,  timorous. 

V.  i.  105.     To  my  capacity.     In  my  opinion. 

V.  i.  106.     Address' d.     Ready. 

V.  i.  107.  Flourish  of  trumpets.  The  usual  announcement  that  the 
play  was  to  begin. 

V.  i.  108  ff.  The  mispunctuation,  indicating  that  Quince's  faulty 
elocution  leads  him  into  saying  the  exact  opposite  of  what  his  lines 
intend,  is  very  carefully  observed  in  botli  Quartos  and  Folios.  The 
same  comic  device  is  used  in  Nicholas  Udall's  comedy  of  Ralph  Roister 
Doister,  played  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

V.  i.  113.     Minding.     Intend   ^'^. 

V.  L  118.     Stand  upon.    Observe.     Point'-      Punningly  used,  mean- 


152  NOTES 

ing  either  (1)  the  proprieties  of  speech,  or  (2)  the  marks  of  punctuation. 

V.  i.  120.  Knows  not  the  stop.  A  pun  of  a  similar  nature,  since  stop 
may  be  taken  as  a  term  in  horsemanship,  indicating  a  particularly 
Budden  method  of  bringing  a  horse  to  a  stop. 

V.  i.  123.  Recorder.  A  kind  of  flute  or  flageolet.  In  government. 
Under  control. 

V.  i.  126.  Gentles.  Gentlefolk,  ladies  and  gentlemen;  a  common 
form  of  address. 

V.  i.  129.  Certain.  The  throwing  of  the  accent  on  the  second  syl- 
lable produces  the  burlesque  effect  that  is  apparent  through  all  the 
diction,  rhyming,  and  pronunciation  of  the  performance  by  Bottom's 
company. 

V.  i.  138.      Right.     Is  called. 

V.  i.  141.     Fall.     Used  transitively. 

V.  i.  143.      Tall.     Valiant. 

V.  i.  146.  Broach'd.  Pierced.  "Apt  alliteration's  artful  aid"  has 
been  much  employed  in  English  poetry  from  Anglo-Saxon  times  down, 
but  it  is  the  excessive  use  of  it  in  old  dramas  like  Sir  Clyomon  and 
Sir  Clamydes  that  Shakspere  here  parodies. 

V.  i.  162.     Sinister.     Left. 

V.  i.  169.     Grim-look'd.     Grim-looking. 

V.  i.  181.     Sensible.     Possessing  senses. 

V.  i.  194.     Lover's  grace.     Graceful  lover. 

V.  i.  195.  Limander.  Bottom's  version  of  Leander,  as  Helen  in 
the  following  line,  is  Flute's  error  for  Hero. 

V.  i.  197.  Shafalus  and  Procrus.  Cephalus  and  Procris,  whose 
story  is  told  by  Ovid,  Met.  VII. 

V.  i.  202.     'Tide  life,  'tide  death.     Whatever  may  betide. 

,V.  i.  205.  Moon  used.  This  is  the  reading  of  the  Quartos.  The 
Folios  read  "Morall  down,"  which  Theobald  emended  to  "mure  [= 
wall]  all  down,"  and  Pope  to  "mural  down."  The  folio  reading  on 
which  these  later  conjectures  are  based  seems  like  an  unauthorized 
attempt  to  make  this  speech  fit  with  the  next.  The  quarto  reading 
is  possible,  and,  on  the  whole,  gives  as  good  sense  as  any  of  the  emenda- 
tions. 

V.  i.  222.  A  lion,  etc.  I  am  a  lion's  skin,  and  in  no  other  sense  can 
be  said  to  contain  a  lion. 

V.  i.  223.      Pity  on  my  life.     Cf.  III.  i.  43. 

V.  i.  231  ff.  The  kind  of  verbal  fencing  illustrated  by  the  speeches  of 
Demetrius  and  Theseus,  which  seems  very  flat  to  us,  greatly  tickled 
the  fancy  of  the  Elizabethans,  and  proficiency  in  it  was  part  of  the 
equipment  of  a  courtier.  Cf.  the  scene  between  the  French  lords  in 
Henvy  V.,  III.  vii. 

V.  i.  243.  Greatest  error  of  all  the  .  Abbott  (Gr.  409)  calls  this 
a  confusion  of  two  constructions,  viz. :  the  greatest  error  of   all,  and  a 


NOTES  153 

greater  error  than  all  the  rest.     Abbott  quotes  Milton's  lines  in  Paradise 
Lost,  iv.  323-4: 

"Adam  the  goodliest  of  men  since  born 
His  sons;  the  fairest  of  her  daughters  Eve." 

V.  i.  247.  In  snuff.  A  common  pun  on  two  meanings  of  snuff  as 
(1)  the  burnt  out  part  of  a  wick,  (2)  anger.  Cf.  Love's  Labour's  Lost, 
V.  ii.  22:     "You'll  mar  the  light  by  taking  it  in  snuff," 

V.  i.  267.  Mous'd.  Thisbe's  mantle  is  shaken  and  torn  by  the  lion, 
as  is  a  mouse  by  a  cat. 

V.  i.  276.     Dole.     Grief. 

V.  i.  284.  Thread  and  thrum.  In  weaving  the  thread  runs  length- 
wise of  the  loom  to  make  the  warp,  while  the  tufts  at  the  end  of  the 
warp  where  it  is  tied,  are  called  thrums. 

V.  i.  285.  Quail.  Seems  to  have  no  particular  meaning,  but  to 
be  used  for  its  alliterative  effect.     Quell.     Kill. 

V.  i.  286.     Passion.     Violent  sorrow. 

V.  i.  296.  Pap.  In  the  pron aiiciation  of  Shakspere's  time  this 
probably  rhymed  with  hop. 

V.  i.  305.  No  die,  but  an  ace,  for  him.  The  ace  is  the  single  spot  on 
a  die,  in  any  game  where  dice  are  used.  The  punning  on  ace  is  con- 
tinued by  Theseus  in  ass,  1.  310. 

V.  i.  317.  Which  Pyramus,  which  Thisbe.  I.  e.  whether  Pyramus 
or  Thisbe  is  the  better. 

V.  i.  318-19.  He  for  a  man  .  .  .  bless  us.  Omitted  from  the 
Folios,  probably  because  of  the  statute  of  James  I.,  passed  in  1605, 
against  using  the  name  of  God  on  the  stage. 

V.  i.  322.      Videlicet.     As  follows. 

V.  i.  335.     Sisters  Three.     The  Fates. 

V.  i.  339.     Shore.     A  burlesque  rhyming  form  of  shorn. 

V.  i.  343.     Imbrue.     Stain  with  blood. 

V.  i.  352.  Bergomask.  A  rustic  dance  after  the  manner  of  the  people 
of  Bergamo  in  northern  Italy,  who  were  considered  especially  clownish. 

V.  i.  354.  Your  play  needs  no  excuse.  The  epilogue  of  a  play  usually 
begged  the  indulgence  of  the  audience;  cf.  Puck's  concluding  lines. 

V.  i.  359.      Discharged.     Performed.     Cf.  IV.  ii.  8. 

V.  i,  361.     Told.     Counted,  numbered. 

V.  i.  364.     Overwatched.     Stayed  up  too  late. 

V.  i.  365.     Palpable-gross.     Palpably  or  evidently  gross,  stupid. 

V.  i.  366.  Heavy  gait  of  night.  Cf.  Henry  V.,  IV.  Prol.  20:  "the 
cripple  tardy-gaited  night.^' 

V.  i.  372.  Fordone.  Exhausted.  The  prefix  for — ,  like  the  German 
ver — ,  implies  negation  or  injury. 

V.  i.  382.  Triple  Hecate.  Statues  of  Hecate  usually  had  three 
bodies  and  three  heads,  because  of  the  three  realms  in  which  she  was  a 
divinity.     In  heaven  she  was  called  Cynthia  or  Luna,  on  earth  Diana, 


154  NOTES 

in  hell  Hecate  or  Proserpina.     Triple  is  equivalent  to  the  Latin  triformis 
or  tergeminat  epithets  applied  to  the  goddess  by  Horace  and  VirgiL 

V,  L  410.     Prodigious.     Monstrous. 

V.  i.  413.     Consecrate.     Consecrated. 

V.  i.  414.     Gait.     Way. 

V.  L  430.     Unearned  luck.     Undeserved  good  fortune, 

V.  i.  431.     Serpent's  tongue.     The  hiss  of  disapproval. 

V.  i.  435.     Hands.     Applause. 

V.  L  436.     Restore  amends,     "Return  your  favors."  [B.], 


WORD  INDEX 


Abridgement,  V.  i.  39. 
aby,  III.  ii.   17s;  HI.  ii.  335. 
ace,  V    i.  305 
Acheron,   III.  ii.  357. 
adamant,   II.  i.    195. 
addressM,  V.  i.   106. 
advance.  III.  ii.    128. 
after-supper,  V.  i.  34. 
against,   I.  i.   125.;  III.  ii.  99. 
aggravate,   I.  ii.   80. 
alone.   III.  ii.    119. 
amiable,   IV.  i.   2. 
an,  I.  ii.   51;  I.  ii.   82. 
anon.  III.  ii.   18. 
approve,   II.  ii.   68. 
apricocks.  III.  i.    164. 
Argument,   III.  ii.   242. 
artificial.   III.  ii.   203. 
aunt,  II.  i.   51. 

Barm,   II.  i.  38. 
barren.   III.  ii.    13. 
bated,  I.  i.   190. 
belike,  I.  i.    130. 
bergomask,  V.  i.  352. 
beshrew,   II.  ii.   54. 
beteem,   I.  i.    131. 
blood,   I.  i.   68;  I.  i.    135. 
bones,   IV.  i,   29. 
bottle,   IV.  i.  33. 
breath.   III.  ii.   44. 
brief,  V.  i.  42. 
broached,  V.  i.   146. 
brow  of  Egypt,  V.  i.   11. 
bully.  III.  i.  8. 
buskin'd,  II.  i.    71. 


Canker-blossom,  III.  ii.   282. 
cankers,   II.  ii.  3. 
capacity,  V.  i.   105. 
Cavalery,  IV.  i.   22. 
changeling,   II.  i.   23. 
chiding,  IV.  i.    114. 
childing,  II.  i.    112. 
choughs.  III.  ii.   21.- 
clerks,  V.  i.   93. 
close.   III.  ii.   7. 
coil.  III.  ii.  339. 
collied,  I.  i.    145, 
compact,  V,  i.  8. 
companies,  I.  i.   219. 
companion,  I.  i.   15. 
conceits,  I.  i.  33. 
condole,  I.  ii.    27. 
confounding.   III.  ii.   93, 
consecrate,  V.  i.   413. 
constancy,  V.  i.   26. 
contagious,  II.  i.   90. 
continents,  II.  i.  92. 
courageous,  IV.  ii.   27. 
courtesy,  IV.  i.   20. 
coy,  IV.  i.   2. 
crab,  II.  i.   48. 
crazed,  I.  i.   92. 
cry  your  mercy.  III.  i.   177, 
curst.  III.  ii.  300. 

Darkling,  II.  ii.  86. 
date.  III.  ii.  373. 
deriv'd,  I.  i.   99. 
discharge,  IV.  ii.   8. 
discharg'd,  V.  i.   359. 
distemperature,  II.  i.    106. 


156 


WORD    INDEX 


dole,  V.  i    276. 

dotage,  IV.  i.  46. 

double,  II.  ii.   9. 

dowager,  I.  i.   5. 

drawn.   III.   ii.   402. 

due,  I.  i.    154;  III.  ii.   214. 

Eat,  II.  ii.  149. 
eglantine,  II.  i.  252. 
enforced,  III.  i,  199. 
Ercles,  I.  ii.  29. 
estate  unto,  I.  i.  98. 
Ethiope,  III.  ii.  257. 
exposition,  IV.  i.  38. 
extenuate,  I.  i.  120. 
eyne,  I.  i.   242;  II.  ii.  99. 

Paining,  I.  i,  31. 

faint,  I.  i.   215. 

fair,   I.  i.    182. 

fall,  V.  i,   141. 

fancy,  I    i.   118;    I.  1.    155; 

i    162. 
fancy-free,   II.  i    164. 
fancy-sick.   Ill,   ii.   96. 
fantasies,    V.  i.   5. 
favour,   I.  i.   186. 
favours,   IV.  i    48. 
fear,  V.   i.    21. 
fearful,   V.  i.    loi. 
fee.  III.  ii.   113. 
filchM,   I.  i.  36. 
flewM,   IV.  i.   119. 
fond,  II.  ii.  88;  III.  ii.  114: 

ii    317. 
force  perforce.   III.  i.    139. 
fordone,   V.  i.   372. 
fruitless.   III.  ii.  371. 

Gait,  V.  i.   414. 
gallant,   I.   ii.    23. 
gawds,   I.  i.   33. 
gaud,   IV.  i.    166. 
gentleness,   II.   ii.    132. 
gentles,  V.   i.    126. 


glance  at,  II.  i.   75. 
gleek.  III.  i.    145. 
go  about,  IV.  i.   205. 
God's  my  life,  IV.  i.   202. 
grace,  IV.  i.    133. 
gracious,   IV.  i    217 
griffin,   II.  i.    232. 
grim-look'd,  V    i.    169. 
grow  to  a  point,   I.  ii.    10. 

Hands,  V.  i.   435. 

harbinger.  III.  ii.  380. 

have.  III.  i.   169. 

henchman,  II.  i.    121. 

Hiems,  II.  i.    109. 

hight,  V.  i.    138. 

hind,  II.  i.   232. 

his,   II.  i.   95 ;   III      ii.   368;       V. 

i.  86. 
humour,  I,  ii.   28. 

IV.    Imbrue,  V    i    343 

immediately,  I.  i.   45. 
impeach,  II    i.   214 
increase,  II.  i-   114. 
interlude,  I.  ii.  6 

Jowl,  III.  ii.  338. 
juvenal.  III.  i.   94. 

Knot-grass,  III,  ii.  329. 

Lakin,  III.  i.   13. 
III.    latch'd.  III.  ii    36. 
leagues,  I.  i    159. 
lesser,  II.  ii    89. 
Limander,  V.  i.    195. 
lingers,  I.  i.   4. 
lob,  II.  i.    16. 
lode-stars,  I    i.    183. 
love-in-idleness,   II.  i.    168. 
lovers'  grace,   V.  i.    194- 

Margent,  II.  i.   85. 
marry,  I.  ii.   11. 


WORD    INDEX 


157 


mask,   I.  ii.   49. 
mazes,   II,  i.   99. 
mechanicals,   III.  ii.   9. 
mew'd,   I.  i.   71. 
minding,  V.  i.    113. 
minimus.   III.  ii.   329. 
misgraffed,   I.  i.    137. 
mispris'd  mood,  III.  ii.   74. 
misprision.   III.   ii.   90. 
momentany,   I.  i.    143. 
moon  used,  V.  i.   205. 
more  better,   III.  i.   20. 
mous'd,   V.  i.   267. 
murrain,  II.  i.   97. 

Neaf,   IV.  i.   19. 

neeze,   II.  i.   56. 

nine  men's  morris,  II.   i.   98. 

nole.  III.  ii.    17. 

nor  .  .  .  not,  II.  i.   201. 

Obscenely,  I.  ii.    105. 
observation,   IV.  i.    103. 
o'ercharged,  V.  i.   85. 
o*erlooked,   II.   ii.   121. 
oes,   III.  ii.   188. 
of  all  loves,   II.  ii.    154. 
offices,   II.  ii.   8. 
orbs,  II.  i.   9. 
orient,   IV.  i.   53. 
original,   II.  i.    117. 
other,   IV.  i.   65. 
ounce,   II.  ii.   30. 
ousel  cock.   III.  i.   124. 
overflown,   IV.  i.    16. 
overwatch'd,  V.  i.   364. 
owe,   II.  ii.   79. 
oxlips,   II.  i.    250. 

Painted  maypole.  III.  ii.   296. 
palpable-gross,  V.  i.  565. 
pard,   II.  ii.   31. 
parlous.  III.  i.   13. 
parts.  III.  ii.    153. 
passion,  V.  i    ?^.6. 


pat.  III.  1.   2. 

patch'd,   IV.  i.   208. 

patches.   III.  ii.   9. 

patent,   I.   i.   80. 

paved,   II.   i.   84. 

pensioners,    II.   i.    la 

periods,   V.  i.   96. 

persever.   III.  ii.   237. 

pert,   I.  i.    13. 

Philomel,   II.   ii.    13. 

pity  of  my  life.   III.   i.   42;  V. 

224. 
plain-song.   III.  i.    130. 
points,  V,  i.    118. 
Puck,   II.  i.   40, 
puppet.   III.   ii.    288. 
purple-in-grain,   I.   ii.   91. 
preferred,   IV.  ii.   38. 
prevailment,   I.   i.   35. 
privilege,   II.  i.   220. 
Procrus,  V.  i.    197. 
prodigious,   V.  i.   410. 
proper,   I.  ii.   84. 
protest,  I.  i.   89. 

Quail,  V.  i.  285. 
quaint,  II.  ii.  7. 
quantity,  I.  i.  232. 
quell,  V.  i.  285. 
quern,  II.  i.  36. 
quill.  III.  i.  127. 
quire,  II.  i.   55. 

Recorder,  V.  i.   123. 
rere-mice,   II.  ii.   4. 
respect,  II.  i.   224. 
respects,   I.  i.    160. 
restore  amends,   V.   i.   436. 
right.   III.   ii.   302. 
ringlets,   II.   i.    86. 
ripe,   II.   ii.    118;  V.  i,   42. 
roundel,  II.   ii.    i. 

Sad,   IV.  i.   94. 
saddest,  II.  i.   %i. 


158 


WORD    INDEX 


sanded,  IV.  i.   119. 

scrip,   I.  ii,   3, 

sensible,  V.  i.    181. 

serpent's  tongue,  V.  i.   431. 

Shafalus,  V.  i.   197. 

sheen,   II.  i.   29. 

shore,  V.  i.  339. 

shrewd,   II.  i.  33;  III.  ii.   323. 

simplicity,   I.  i.    171. 

sinister,  V.  i.    162. 

snuff,  V.  i.   247. 

sort.   III.  ii.    13;  III.  ii.  21;   III. 

ii.    159. 
sorting,  V.  i.   55. 
sphery,   II.   ii.   99. 
spleen,   I.  i.    146. 
spotted,   I.  i.    no. 
square,  II.  i.   30. 
squash.   III.  i.    184. 
stalls.  III.  ii.    10. 
stand  upon,  V.  i.    118. 
stealth.   III.  ii.   310;  IV.  i.    159. 
still,   I.  i.   212;  III.  ii.   345. 
stop,  V.  i.   120. 
strange,  V.  i.   59. 
super-praise.  III.  ii.   1^3. 

**Tailor,**  II.  i.   54. 

tales.   III.  ii.    133. 

tall,  V.  i.    143. 

tame.  III.  ii.   259. 

thin,  II.  i.   109. 

thing  of  naught,   IV.  ii.    14. 

throstle.   III.  i.    126. 

throws,  II.  i.   255. 

thrum,  V.  i.   284. 

tiring-house.  III.  i.  4. 

told,  V.  i.  361. 


tongs,   IV.  i.    29. 
touch.   III.  ii.    70. 
toward.   III.  i.   78. 
trace,   II.  i.    25. 
translated,   I.   i.    191;  III.  i. 
transported,   IV.  ii.   4. 
trim.   III.  ii.    157. 
t>'iple  Hecate,  V.  i.   382. 
troth,   II.  ii.   36;   II.   ii.   42; 

ii.   92. 
two  of  the  first.   III.  ii.   213 

Unbreathed,  V.  i.   74. 
uncouple,   IV.  i.    106. 
unearned  luck,  V.  i.   430. 
unhard'ned,  I.  i.  35. 

Vaward,   IV.  i.    104. 
videlicet,  V.  i.   322. 
villagery,   II.  i.   35. 
virtue,   IV.  i.    168. 
virtuous.   III.  ii.  367. 
voice,  I.  i.   54. 

Wanton,   II.  i.   99. 
washes,  II.  i.    104. 
waxen,  II.  i.   56. 
weed,  II.  i.   256. 
welkin.   III.   ii.   356. 
wonted,   II.  i.    113. 
wood,   II.  i.    192. 
woodbine,   II.  i.    251. 
worser,  II.  i.   208. 

You  (eth.   dat.),   I.   ii.   8ic 
you  were  best,  I.  ii.   2. 
your.  III.  i.  32c 


118. 


Ill 


APPENDIX 

(Adapted,  and  enlarged,  from  the  Manual  for  the  Study 
of  English  Classics,  by  George  L.  Marsh) 

HELPS  TO  STUDY 
The  Drama 

In  what  did  the  drama  originate?    (Pages  16, 17.) 

What  elements  were  contained  in  the  miracle  plays 
that  had  an  influence  toward  the  development  of  comedy? 

What  were  moralities?     Interludes? 

What  foreign  influences  contributed  to  the  development 
of  the  Elizabethan  drama  (pp.  19,  20)  ? 

Name  several  of  Shakspere  's  predecessors  in  the  drama. 
Who  was  the  greatest  of  them? 

Describe  briefly  the  theater  of  Shakspere 's  day  (pp. 
26,  27).  The  characteristics  of  a  Shaksperean  audience. 
Did  Shakspere  write  his  plays  for  posterity  or  to  please 
an  Elizabethan  audience? 

Shakspere 's  Career 

When  and  where  was  Shakspere  born? 

What  can  you  say  as  to  his  education  (p.  21)?  His 
occupations  before  he  went  to  London? 

What  do  we  know  about  his  early  years  in  London? 

What  were  his  first  dramatic  efforts  (p.  24)  ?  What 
other  literary  work,  besides  writing  plays,  did  he  do? 

Learn  the  general  characteristics  of  Shakspere 's  work 
during  the  four  periods  into  which  it  is  divided,  and  the 
names  of  representative  plays  of  each  period  (pp.  29,  30). 
159 


160  APPENDIX 

A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream — External  Facts 

What  is  the  probable  date  of  this  play  (p.  32)  ?  What 
are  the  evidences  by  which  this  conclusion  is  reached? 
What  are  the  early  editions  of  it  and  when  did  they  appear 
(p.  34)? 

Wherein  does  this  play  notably  differ  from  most  of 
Shakspere's  w©rks  in  relation  to  a  source  (p.  34)  ?  What 
English  writers  before  Shakspere  may  have  furnished 
some  hints?  What  is  it  important  to  remember  about 
Shakspere's  use  of  fairy  lore  (pp.  35-37)? 

Are  there  reasons  for  thinking  this  play  was  not  in- 
tended for  the  ordinary  stage  (pp.  37,  38)  ? 

Test  the  metrical  characteristics  of  the  play  by  making 
whatever  additions  you  can  to  the  examples  of  use  of 
rhyme  mentioned  on  page  38.  For  what  purposes  is  prose 
used  (p.  39)  ? 

Find  additional  examples  of  the  various  uses  of  lan- 
guage mentioned  on  pages  42-44.  Of  the  metrical  irregu- 
larities (pp.  39-41). 

Progress  of  the  Play 

What  specific  act  starts  the  play  moving  (p.  133)  ? 
This  may  be  called  the  ^  ^  exciting  force. ' '  What  relation 
has  the  preceding  matter  to  the  main  action? 

Note  possible  indications  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  ex- 
pected presence  at  the  first  presentation  of  this  play  (pp. 
50,  66,  67). 

Is  it  natural  that  Lysander  and  Hermia  should  be  left 
together  (p.  51)  ?  Can  you  suggest  a  manner  of  handling 
the  scene — the  exits,  grouping,  and  moving  of  characters, 
etc. — that  will  make  this  seem  more  natural  ?  What  effort 
is  made  to  account  for  leaving  the  two  alone? 

Note  the  antithesis  and  balance  in  tlie  one-line  speeches 
on  pages  52,  54.  Are  there  similar  examples  elsewhere  in 
the  play?    What  is  the  effect  of  such  devices? 


APPENDIX  161 

Is  Helena 's  resolve  to  tell  Demetrius  of  Hermia  's  flight 
reasonable  (p.  56)  ?  Or  did  the  dramatist  simplj  have 
to  get  his  people  to  the  wood,  by  any  hook  or  crook? 

What  broadly  contrasted  groups  of  human  characters 
in  the  play  are  presented  in  scenes  i  and  ii  of  Act  I? 
What  connections  are  made  between  them  (p.  136)  1 

What  was  an  ^  ^  interlude ' '  (p.  136)?  What  sort  of 
dramatic  productions  are  burlesqued  in  I,  ii  (p.  57)  ? 
Note  how,  in  all  scenes  similar  to  this,  Shakspere  reflects 
the  theatric  conditions  of  his  time. 

How  are  the  fairy  characters  which  are  introduced  in 
II,  i,  given  an  important  relation  to  the  human  charac- 
ters and  the  main  plot  of  the  play  (p.  138)  ? 

Note  the  resemblances  of  what  is  said  about  Robin 
Goodfellow  (pp.  62,  63)  to  things  said  about  Queen  Mab 
in  Mercutio's  famous  speech  in  Borneo  and  Juliet  (pp. 
36,37). 

Is  there  any  good  reason  within  the  play  for  Titania^s 
long  speech  on  pages  64,  65?  Does  the  answer  to  the 
foregoing  question  affect  one 's  judgment  as  to  the  use  of 
this  speech  in  trying  to  determine  the  date  of  the  play 
(p.  33)  I 

What  portion  of  II,  i,  has  been  given  an  allegorical  in- 
terpretation (p.  141)  ?  Is  the  undoubted  personal  allusion 
of  this  passage  objectionable  in  a  play  set  in  Athens? 

Note  in  detail  the  skillful  way  in  which  Puck 's  compli- 
ance with  Oberon's  instructions  is  made  to  result  in  the 
opposite  way  from  that  intended  (II,  ii). 

Does  Bottom  know  he  is  changed  (p.  82)  ?  What  is 
the  effect  (p.  145)  ?  Why  is  he  chosen  from  among  the 
artisans  to  receive  the  ass's  head? 

What  purpose  is  served  by  Robin's  telling  in  detail 
about  action  that  has  already  been  witnessed  (pp.  86,  87)  ? 

What  first  step  toward  the  solution  of  the  complica- 
tions of  the  plot  is  taken  in  III,  ii? 


162  APPENDIX 

What  differences  in  appearance  between  Helena  and 
Hermia  are  brought  out  in  the  course  of  the  dialogue  (pp. 
96,  97,  etc.)  ?  Are  there  any  distinct  differences  of  char- 
acter? How  about  Demetrius  and  Lysander  in  this  re- 
gard? Do  Helena  ^s  conclusions  as  to  a  conspiracy  to 
mock  her  (p.  93)  seem  reasonable?  Is  the  quarrel  be- 
tween her  and  Hermia  worked  up  naturally?  Does  it 
unduly  lower  their  dignity  as  heroines,  or  is  it  in  any 
way  objectionable? 

Where  is  the  complication  of  the  plot  complete? 

Is  it  necessary,  and  effective,  to  have  Oberon  tell  what 
he  is  going  to  do  (p.  100) — ^how  he  w^ill  have  the  various 
complications  unravelled?  Does  he  tell  so  much  as  to 
cause  readers  or  audience  to  lose  interest? 

Note  the  use  of  stanzaic  forms  for  balanced 
(pp.  90,  91,  103,  etc.).    What  is  tie  effect? 

Why  does  Oberon  himself  release  Titania  from  the 
spell,  while  Puck  releases  the  other  victims  ?  Is  the  recon- 
ciliation of  Oberon  and  Titania  made  to  appear  complete 
and  reasonable? 

How  do  Theseus  and  Hippolyta  happen  to  come  to  the 
wood  (p.  110)  ?  Why  is  no  trouble  made  about  finding 
the  young  people  there  ?  Why  does  Theseus  no  longer  sup- 
port Hermia 's  father  in  his  choice  of  Demetrius  for  her? 

Why  is  Bottom  the  last  of  the  bewitched  mortals  to 
awake?  How  is  his  first  speech  on  awaking  to  be  ac- 
counted for  (p.  149)  ? 

What  striking  comic  device  is  used  in  Quince 's  Prologue 
(p.  151)  ?  Work  out  what  is  really  meant,  as  contrasted 
with  what  he  actually  says. 

Note  differences  in  both  meter  and  language  between 
the  fanciful  verse  of  the  fairies  and  the  burlesque  lyric 
forms  used  by  the  artisan-actors  (pp.  127  ff.). 

Are  the  comments  of  the  auditors  effectively  worked 
in  with  the  interlude  in  V,  i? 


APPENDIX  163 

Why  should  the  fairies  come  in  again  at  the  very  end? 
(See  p.  150.) 

What  is  the  function  of  the  last  act  in  relation  to  the 
real  plot  of  the  play?    Would  you  wish  it  cut  off? 

What  significant  things  about  poetry  and  drama  are 
said  during  the  last  act   (pp.  116,  124)  ? 

General  Considerations 

How  long  does  the  action  last?  Note  hints  as  to  time 
throughout  the  play.  Which  imply  a  longer  and  which  a 
shorter  duration  ?  What  reasons  are  there  for  such  ^  ^  dou- 
ble time.''? 

Which  is  the  more  important  in  this  play — the  fairy 
or  the  human  element  ?  How  do  the  fairies  differ  from  the 
mortals?  Is  Puck  materially  unlike  the  other  fairies? 
Compare  and  contrast  him  with  Ariel  in  The  Tempest. 

Is  it  in  any  way  objectionable  that  Shakspere  brought 
together  in  one  play  characters  from  Greek  mythology, 
English  folk  lore,  and  the  common  life  of  his  time? 

What  line  within  the  play  may  be  said  to  express  its 
main  theme  (p.  52)?  Is  this  sufficient?  Discuss  the 
point  as  to  the  main  theme. 

Contrast  the  wholly  comic  use  of  a  play  within  a  play 
here,  with  the  tragic  use  of  such  a  play  in  Hamlet. 

What  difficulties  are  there  in  effective  staging  of  A  Mid- 
summer-Night's Bream?  Let  those  who  have  ever  seen 
it  played  give  their  impressions. 

In  what  way  does  this  play  seem  the  work  of  a  young 
man?  Contrast  The  Tempest,  a  similar  sort  of  play  writ- 
ten much  later  in  Shakspere 's  life. 

Does  the  comedy  of  this  play  result  mainly  from  char- 
acter or  from  situation?  Compare  A  Comedy  of  Errors 
on  this  point.  Is  the  individual  character  of  any  per- 
sonage especially  significant?  Whom  do  you  consider 
the  most  important  figure  in  the  dramatic  portraiture  ? 


164  APPENDIX 

THEME  SUBJECTS 

1.  Shakspere^s  life  (pp.  21-31). 

2.  The  drama  before  Shakspere   (pp.  15-21). 

3.  The  stage  of  Shakspere  ^s  time  (pp.  26,  27;  with 
illustration  of  how  different  parts  of  this  play  were  pre- 
sumably staged). 

4.  Allusions  to  contemporary  persons  and  events  in 
this  play  (pp.  33,  38). 

5.  A  Midsummer-Night  *s  Dream  and  possible  sources 
(pp. '34-37). 

6.  Narrative  themes  on  the  different  stories  in- 
volved, e.  g. : 

Hermia  and  Lysander.  Oberon  and  Titania's 

Helena  and  Demetrius.  quarrel. 

Theseus  and  Hippolyta.  .  The  translation  of  Bottom. 

7.  The  play  within  the  play  (its  purpose,  its  story, 
how  it  may  be  assumed  to  have  been  staged,  etc.). 

8.  Shakspere  and  English  fairy  lore  (pp.  35-37). 

9.  Character  sketch  of  Eobin  Goodf ellow ;  of  Theseus ; 
of  Bottom. 

10.  The  quartet  of  young  lovers.  (Are  they  in- 
dividualized?) 

11.  The  structure  of  the  play.  (Note  the  gradually 
increasing  complications,  followed  by  rapid  unravelling, 
mainly  by  the  fairies, ) 

12.  The  satiric  element  (in  the  dramatic  aspirations 
of  the  artisans). 

13.  Metrical  characteristics  of  A  Midsummer-Night's 
Dream   (pp.  38  ff.). 

14.  Develop  and  explain  the  views  about  poetry  and 
the  drama  to  be  found  on  pages  116,  124. 

15.  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  on  the  stage.  (Is 
it  staged  often;  difficult  or  easy  to  play?  Let  any  who 
have   seen  it   played   write   their   impressions.) 


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